A while ago now, Marshalls got in touch to see if I would like to sow and grow their heritage garlic. I have grown quite a few varieties over the last few years, and I am also open to trying something different. In addition, in my mind at least, garlic is something a plot staple. All of the garlic is sown and grown passes through Mum’s kitchen and is used in both Indian and other cooking.

Having received the heritage collection in the post, it was then sunk into the soil at the allotment. The cloves did take some time to come through; this time is used to develop a root system; eventually lush green foliage was sent upwards and that is what you can see from the image above. It certainly looked very robust, and has to deal with a lot erratic weather.

There has been a lot of patient observation over the last few months as the up and down weather as it does cause the plants to bolt and send out flower buds from time to time. This was what I was keeping mind as I harvested the garlic today. The flower stalks were just starting to form. That doesn’t render the crop useless, but it is hint to start taking it all up and use.

Garlic harvested

Floral trug and garlic

garlic drying

Taking up the garlic was fairly straight forward. Wet soil meant that it all could be pulled up quite easily without having to resort to a folk to lever out the bulbs. You will see that I have snipped off the foliage. This is purely for practical reasons to allow storage. Space is at a premium, so the foliage is snipped off to leave a neck. The bulbs are now sat on trays and will dry over the coming weeks.

I can safely say, that there is now a very garlic-ky scent in the air! There are quite a few bulbs given the number of bulbs that I started off with. All of which will be used in the coming weeks and months. This will allow a better insight into the flavour of the bulbs. You’d think that all garlic was the same, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. Different varieties come in different sizes, have a different provenance; all of which will impact upon the flavour. All being well, this will be considered carefully and soon.