Homegrown Garlic

Whether you're a health nut or an avid cook or just looking to keep vampires away, garlic should be your go-to. Some of the chemical compounds garlic contains naturally help to enhance our immunity to viral, bacterial and fungal pathogens, and, when you grow your own garlic, you can take actions to boost the amount of these beneficial compounds. Growing your own also provides you with more options in terms of flavor profiles, longterm storage potential and access to fresh garlic and garlic scapes.

- by Susan M. Brackney

Now, if you've never grown garlic before or you've only had so-so luck with it in the past, keep in mind that your success largely depends on matching the right garlic type with your specific climate and growing conditions. “It’s all about where you live, what your latitude is, what your day length is, what the mineralization is like in your soil, how heavy or light your soil is — all of those things affect garlic,” Maddux MacGregor says. MacGregor has been growing garlic for nearly 40 years and is farm manager at Filaree Garlic Farm in Washington state.

Neck-and-Neck

How you intend to use any garlic you grow matters, too. For instance, say you want to make garlic braids or wreaths for attractive longterm storage. In that case, look into the softneck varieties. As the name suggests, softnecks produce soft, pliable — and braidable — stems, and this garlic type will keep for 10 months to a year.

If really strong garlic flavors are more important than longterm storage, you might want to opt for some of the hardneck garlic varieties. Hardnecks vary widely in terms of both flavor and appearance, and, for their part, they can be stored for between four and six months. Some common hardneck types include the porcelains, Asiatics, turbans, Rocamboles, Creoles and purple stripes. (As for the softnecks, there are just two — the artichoke and silverskin varieties.)

Unlike the softnecks, hardneck garlic also sends up edible garlic scapes in late spring or early summer. These are budding flower stalks that should be snipped off while they’re still tender and young so that the energy your plants might have spent flowering is instead redirected back into bulb development. Meanwhile, you can chop up the onionlike garlic scapes you remove to eat raw in salads or to add to stir-fries, soups and other dishes.