In Pursuit of Garlic (6 page)

My beautiful boy grew to a young man, and I checked him carefully every few days, weeding around him and cutting away potentially interfering perennials. I watched his siblings, too—no favoritism here, even though I was banking on my young man to make me a successful garlic grower, even if it was only of one plant. I did as much as I could for the others when I could find them in my crowded garden, digging out the plants around them, making sure they had enough water. Unfortunately, my garden had not been the right place for them from the beginning, and it was a losing battle. They remained skinny Minnies, though they all grew scapes because they were from the hardneck family of garlics. As already mentioned, garlic comes in two types—hardneck (
Allium sativum
var.
ophioscorodon
), which is closer to the ancient type and grows a scape that curls as it matures, and softneck (
Allium sativum
var.
sativum
). Hardneck types produce a single row of six to eleven cloves, which cluster around its underground base. Softneck garlic, on the other hand, grows with no theatrics—and by that I mean no graceful, curling flower scapes. It is a shorter plant, and its bulb produces several rows of cloves, larger ones in an outer row and smaller ones inside them, closer to the leaf sheath, sometimes as many as twenty-four. Softneck garlic is the choice of large-scale commercial growers because it grows well in California and other warmer climates, which produce large quantities for sale and export; growers don’t need to remove the scapes, which would add to production costs; and softneck garlic usually can be stored longer than hardneck varieties. Softneck garlic is the one used for braiding because the stalk is pliable enough to manipulate.

Garlic completely conquers lassitude, catarrh, rheumatism of the arms and back, and epilepsy.

THE BOWER MANUSCRIPT

BUT MAN, Judith was right. Those scapes on the hardnecks were indeed entertaining. I’d heard of the fields of sunflowers in France whose yellow faces follow the sun from morning to night, but this natural phenomenon of plant movement was happening, albeit in a different time frame, in my own front yard! Small and skinny as they were, the scapes still put on a great show, coiling gracefully downward over a week’s time, their umbels like flamingo beaks searching the sea for food, then straightening out and pointing toward the heavens. They added an offbeat presence to my garden of busty flowers, and people taking postprandial walks down our street often stopped to ask what they were. I decided to let most of the scapes grow to maturity, as Judith did, but I decapitated some when they started to straighten out, including my boy’s. This was a few years before scapes became a gourmand’s delight, so I was ignorant of their culinary value and tossed them onto the compost heap. I hoped trimming them off would allow a few struggling plants to develop nice big bulbs for me to eat.

Well, it didn’t. Harvest time came, and I carefully dug up the bulbs and found that most of them were “rounds,” garlicspeak for bulbs composed of a single clove, but bigger than the ones in a multicloved bulb. There’s nothing wrong with rounds. They taste good—you just don’t get as much garlic. Some of my bulbs had two small cloves, nowhere near the usual yield for ‘Fish Lake #3,’ which normally produces four to six. Nevertheless, I washed the rounds off carefully, dried them in the sun, and hung all ten of them from a rafter in the garage. Once they were cured they kept me in garlic for about two weeks.

Ah, but would my young man fulfill my dream? I held my breath as I approached him near the end of July; he looked older and a little droopy, with mostly dried, tan-colored leaves. I carefully put my trowel in the ground and dug him up. He was gorgeous! Not huge, but handsome—maybe the diameter of an Oreo with three fat cloves around his nearly dried leaf sheath. Best of all, he was proof I might eventually grow a successful crop of good garlic.

I trimmed his roots and hung him in a special spot in the garage as he dried and cured. Then I cut his stem off just above his neck and put him on a shelf in the kitchen where I could admire him as I cooked. His dry, taut skin looked pearly white, and his body was beautifully rounded. I admired him for many weeks, and then I could wait no longer.

I ate him.

I can’t get enough garlic!

TED WILLIAMS

I HAVE a confession to make: I didn’t plant garlic at all for the next few years.

But about four years after my disappointing first try, I watched with interest as dozens of skinny garlic plants sprang up all over our front garden. Were these the offspring of Judith’s garlic? Why had they waited so long? As far as I knew, modern garlic had lost the ability to set seed. Was a miracle occurring here, in my own garden?

No, there was a simpler explanation. It wasn’t seed; it was the bulbils, those curious tiny clove look-alikes growing among the little flowers in the umbels, doing what they’d been programmed to do. They’d blown far and wide in my garden, and although it had taken them a few growing seasons, they were producing new plants. In late July I dug most of them up to see how they were doing and discovered a crop of small but deliciously juicy rounds. I left the rest to grow the following year, when I actually harvested some bulbs—small ones, to be sure, but some had three cloves. The next year they were bigger still.

It was enough to give me garlic fever.

Our front garden was clearly not the place to grow great garlic, so I decided to transform our last scrap of grass in the back into a thyme patch, leaving enough growing room between the new thyme plants for twenty-four garlic plants. The garlic I ordered from the website of a West Coast grower was big and luscious, and I bought more at a local September garlic fair—‘Persian Star,’ ‘Rosewood,’ ‘Dan’s Russian,’ ‘Mount Currie,’ ‘Fish Lake #3,’ and others—to plant as well as to store and eat over the winter. I’ve planted two garlic crops in that space now, and they were as easy to grow and as problem free as anything I’ve ever grown. I will admit the bulbs aren’t as big as I’d like, but they’re juicy and hot and a hundred times better than the small, dried-up Chinese store-bought variety. I figure I’m still learning how to put into practice all the little tips I’ve picked up, and soon I’ll be growing garlic like what I see at the fairs, the kind that make a statement in your garlic jar.

Everyone from Judith to the speakers at garlic fairs and the authors of the books I’d read had assured me that growing garlic was rewardingly easy. The simple fact is that garlic is a happy, adaptable plant that grows in many places in the world and does well in temperate areas of North America, which is most of it. It has a strong life force and wants to survive. It will sometimes change its habits to suit the conditions it faces, as when centuries ago the hardnecks evolved into softnecks in the Mediterranean area and created a new kind of garlic. I love this unsung little plant!

Garlic takes nine months to reach fruition, and in almost every part of North America it’s best planted in fall, three or four weeks before hard frost, so that it has time to develop some root growth before winter comes. Then it needs a period of cold to fully develop its bulb. Hardnecks, such as the popular Rocamboles, for example, prefer frosty winters and yield poorly without a period of vernalization, but there are always exceptions. A man southwest of Abilene, Texas, reported successfully growing a couple of Purple Stripe hardnecks in his garden, one named ‘Siberian’ just to make sure we know it likes the cold. The normally scapeless softneck cultivars do best in mild winters, but some of them, such as those of the Silverskin subgroup, do fine in colder areas where—just to demonstrate their adaptable natures—they occasionally grow a scape. (For help with what varieties to plant in your part of the world, see “A Garlic Primer.”)

Nevertheless, garlic needs some cool weather to develop the bulb, and some types like it colder than others. For example, the softneck garlic grown in California has adapted to milder winters but still needs chilly January or February weather to grow full cloves; the types grown in Central Asia, however, require really harsh winters to produce them. In places like North Africa and South Asia, where winter doesn’t exist at all, multicloved bulbs simply don’t form. In those parts, garlic is grown for its leaves, which are tasty too.

AS I discovered in my garden, if garlic is left in the ground year after year, the bulbs become ever smaller but more numerous. This is because each clove grows a new plant, and the plants become so crowded that the bulbs can’t reach a good size. Plants that grow from scattered bulbils take about three years to grow large enough to produce single, smallish rounds, but sometimes leaving the scapes on and allowing garlic to reproduce through bulbils is a way to enjoy the presence of graceful scapes in the garden as well as a taste of fresh, homegrown garlic.

Garlic likes full sun. It’s not too difficult to meet this requirement, since the period from early spring into mid to late July, the general harvest time in most parts of the continent, is usually the sunniest time of the year, with the longest days. But plant in an open area with maximum sunshine and keep the area free of even small weeds, since even they can shade the slender garlic leaves.

Garlic is usually planted in rows in the vegetable garden, but because it’s such a dramatic plant with ornamental attractions I see no reason why you can’t plant it in open areas of a sunny perennial border, singly for architectural interest or in groups of one variety each. (Need I remind you to label the spots where you bury the cloves?) In our back bed I plant garlic in circular groups of one variety, with each circle about 18 inches (half a meter) away from low perennials. They’ve grown happily that way for two seasons, though I know that’s not going to last. I’ll have to dig up another part of our garden or rent an allotment garden if I want to continue to feed my garlic obsession.

One other consideration in choosing a site: like tomatoes and other plants in the Solanaceae family, garlic crops shouldn’t be planted in the same place every year. This suggestion isn’t especially practical in a small home garden, but if you can plant garlic on the other side of the vegetable plot the following year, you should be able to avoid a buildup of pathogens or pests in the soil.

Garlic may have originated in thin, rocky soils centuries ago, but no one was demanding a lot of it back then. It was surviving, not thriving, hanging on and establishing itself as the tough little plant it’s turned out to be. These days we want it to produce fat bulbs, so we must provide it with friable soil that drains well but is rich in organic matter. A neutral to slightly acidic pH level (6 to 7.5) is perfect. If you want to test your soil, kits are usually available at garden centers or through the local agricultural office. Most soils sit between pH 5 and 9, however, so yours is not likely a problem.

If I were preparing a garlic bed a year in advance—the best way to do it—in the fall I’d dig in some grass clippings, chopped leaves, and vegetable trimmings from the kitchen, without putting them through the composting process. Mixed well with the existing soil, they’ll break down for the following fall’s planting. But if you’re a last-minute person, like me, and you decide you want to plant garlic
now,
incorporate a good layer of compost or well-rotted manure and mix it in to a depth of about 6 inches (15 centimeters).

Some of the garlic cloves I planted with Judith had only 3 inches (7.5 centimeters) of soil around them—no wonder they grew up to be midgets! Most garlic should be planted 4 to 6 inches (10 to 15 centimeters) apart; larger varieties, such as the Porcelain group, need 6 inches (15 centimeters), so you should know your variety. If you’re planting in rows, space them no less than 8 inches (20 centimeters) apart so that the rows don’t shade each other. Rows can be wider, of course, and spacing will depend on convenience, such as location of access pathways.

Don’t buy separate cloves to plant—it’s better to start with whole bulbs and separate the cloves just before planting. Separated cloves may have small cuts or loosened skins, which could make them vulnerable to viruses or bacteria. Twist the bulbs gently or pry off the cloves, being careful not to nick them or tear off their papery skin. Plant the cloves, pointed end up, in holes about 3 inches (7.5 centimeters) deep. There should be about 2 inches (5 centimeters) of soil between the tops and the soil surface. “If you plant them upside down they’ll end up in China!” said Ted Maczka, the Fish Lake Garlic Man, at a garlic fair seminar, laughing at his joke until the garlic bulbs glued to his visored cap shook dangerously. “Then the Chinese will sell them all back to us.”

Ted may have retired to a seniors’ home, but he frequently returns to his garlic farm in Ontario’s Prince Edward County to play classical music to his plants. “They show up early through the snow in spring looking for the beautiful music,” he says. He talks to them, too, because they’re living things with an energy flow and they like being included in the conversation.

IF YOU live a distance north or south of the forty-ninth parallel or the Great Lakes, the rules change. Plant a little deeper the farther north you live, a little shallower if you’re in a more southern climate. In severely cold climates, cover the cloves with as much as 4 inches (10 centimeters) of soil (plus a winter blanket of mulch); in California an inch (2 centimeters) should suffice. But don’t lose too much sleep over planting depths—if you plant too deep the shoots may take longer to pop through the earth in spring, but they’ll catch up once the weather is warm.

Many garlic growers say the most successful seed cloves don’t come from the biggest bulbs; in fact large seed cloves don’t ensure a crop of big bulbs the following year. But really small cloves aren’t ideal either; they may not grow bulbs that are properly segmented. Use only the larger outer cloves of softneck varieties for seed. “Eat the biggest and the smallest,” says Ted Maczka. “Plant the middle-sized ones.”