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Metechi Garlic

Metechi Garlic

This garlic is a Marbled Purple Stripe type.

This garlic was a bit of a surprise. This was my first year growing it, and it did very well compared with most of my other varieties. It is another great garlic from the former Soviet republic of Georgia.

The taste is hot and spicy for sure, but at the same time it can get lost in cooked foods because cooking mellows the flavor so much. It’s very nice raw, because the flavor is not overwhelming.

The color ranges from very purple to very white, and the cloves are large and have the same coloring as the skin.

The skin is very thick and paper like. Most garlic has a skin that kind of flakes off with a bit of rubbing. This skin requires a deliberate tear with a knife or finger nail, and can then be gently torn off. Time will tell if this skin is an advantage or not. The cloves were very wet after curing, and the thick skin may cause it to mold. At the same time, the thick skin may keep it from drying out and shriveling up.

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Gypsy Red Garlic

Gypsy Red Garlic

I don’t know what type of garlic this is.

This variety of garlic never seems to form very big bulbs in my garden, but it’s really nice none the less. It’s reasonably productive as well as looks and tastes really nice. Last year the colors were very different, with a much deeper red and a bit of yellow on the tips of the cloves.

This is one of my personal favorite varieties.

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Burgundy Garlic

Burgundy Garlic

This is a Creole type garlic.

Creole garlic is more of a warm climate type, so none of them do very well in my northern garden. This one does reasonably well, all things considered. The striking feature of this garlic is the bright red cloves contrasted with a paper white skin. You can see many of the bulbs began to open in the ground. The taste of this garlic is good, and somewhat unique.

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Inchelium Red Garlic

Inchelium Red

This an Artichoke type garlic.

This is also also a garlic that does well in my garden. Even though I get a lot of large bulbs, I also get many small ones. This may just be a matter of growing it for a few more years and selecting for the larger bulbs. The taste is nice, but not outstanding.

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Red Toch Garlic

Red Toch Garlic

This garlic is an Artichoke type.

I’ve been slowly working my way through the garlic I’ve harvested over the last month or so. I’m not going to make separate posts of all the garlic I grew, but I thought I would point out what I think are some of the more interesting ones.

It’s my habit not to clean the bulbs until they have cured, so while many other people have been posting pictures of their cleaned garlic, I haven’t had any to take pictures of until now. I find if I clean harvested garlic with water, it risks making the bulb wetter and the curing process more difficult.

My garlic was wet enough this year when it came out of the ground! It was a very wet year here. About 1 in 20 bulbs formed single cloves, and many fell victim to rotting or mildew. Not a great year for growing garlic!

Anyway, Red Toch is a variety from the former Soviet republic of Georgia. Toch is short for Tochliavri, the name of a city. Many really outstanding garlics come from Georgia!

The Seed Savers Exchange reports this is the most commonly requested variety by it’s members.

I like this variety very much, and it grows very well in my garden. It is a good all purpose garlic. The one major drawback is it has one of the shortest storage life of all the varieties I grow, so I have to make sure I eat it first.

The bulb on the right began to open in the ground, exposing the cloves.