Heirloom Gardening, Food and Other Thoughts
This garlic is Asiatic Turban type.
This has a skin pattern similar to my other Asiatic Turban garlics, and the cloves are really bright and colorful. For some reason this garlic formed a lot of single clove bulbs. The 3 bulbs left, right and rear are all single clove bulbs.
This garlic has a wonderful smell when you break open the bulbs.
The garlic is Asiatic Turban type.
All of my garlics of this type have similar purple striped skins. This type of garlic normally doesn’t have a long storage life, but this is my first year with this garlic so I don’t have any first hand experience. This one didn’t grow particularly well, but the bulbs are a reasonable size and they didn’t open up in the ground.
If you mention garlic breeding to some plant experts they will turn their nose at you. Breeding garlic? What does that mean? After all, garlic propagates asexually, and does not form true seeds or exchange DNA. How can you talk about garlic breeding in such circumstances?
The answer is there are two basic breeding techniques, the first cross pollinating and the second selectively saving propagation materials (usually seeds) from plants with desired traits. The first kind of breeding, cross pollinating is not possible with garlic, but it is possible to save planting stock from garlic plants with desirable characteristics and this is the exclusive way garlic is breed.
This makes garlic breeding much more of a challenge, and much more of a slow process. It’s much easier when you can shake up the DNA of a plant by cross pollinating, then if you have to replant garlic year after year and wait for the DNA to change slowly on it’s own! It takes real dedication to create a new garlic variety this way. In fact over the years new varieties have probably not so much as been deliberately created, but rather created by geographical isolation and gardeners selectively growing varieties that performed well in their climate.
Consider for example Korean Red and Pyong Vang garlics. Both are Asiatic types, and have presumably been grown for some time in in the two Koreas. Many great garlics have emerged in the last couple of decades from the states of the former Soviet Union, showing both isolation within the Soviet Union and with the outside world.
Even on a much smaller scale, if you buy garlic planting stock from 2 or more different sources and put them side by side, you will probably see they are very different. Partly it will be the respective climates they were grown in, but even if you plant them in your garden and compare the resulting garlic, you will still probably find many differences. This is the main reason why it’s important to get your garlic planting stock from a climate similar to your own! Or, alternatively, from several different sources so you can pick the best variation of a particular variety.
This unusual way garlic has been breed over the years has prompted some people to wonder if the various garlic varieties are really all or mostly the same, when it all comes down to it. A recent study concluded that this may very well be the case. Indeed you could extrapolate from this study, and conclude that in fact there are only ten different garlics, corresponding to the ten garlic types. Maybe there are even fewer differences between these ten types then presently thought.
So, is all garlic really the same? There are very tangible differences between the varieties. There are different tastes, appearances and suitability for climates. At the same time these differences can be pretty minor, for example the number of cloves per bulb or a slight difference in the color of the bulb skin. Just what makes a different variety? There’s no clear answer to this question.
These differences, or lack there of, can present a challenge to garlic growers. Perhaps the most important thing to understand is a lot can be gained by comparing a very large number of different varieties of garlic, but at the same time almost as much can be gained working with a smaller subset.
I have some extra garlic planting stock if anyone is interested.
I’m sorry, I can’t send it to the US. I live in Holland, and the US just doesn’t allow the import of garlic from Holland without a ton of red tape, if at all. Mostly this offer is to people in northern Europe, because the climate will be similar to mine and we will have the best chance for success.
In practical terms, I can send it anywhere within the European Union without any problems. If you live outside of the EU and the US, and are interested, we would have to look into it and see if it’s possible. Importing garlic into Holland does not seem to be a problem, and if we look into it we may find the same thing true with many other countries.
I had garlic rust, a fungal disease. As far as I know this is not carried in the garlic itself, is only present in the ground and air, but understand planting my garlic in your garden is not without risk of infection. In fact this is a very common plant disease by now, and is probably in your area anyway.
Plant viruses are also very common in garlic, and are probably present in my bulbs. Normally this is something hard to avoid anyway, and viruses are not normally considered very serious. Some viruses are even considered beneficial. I have no reason to believe I have an unusual or serious problem with viruses.
I am not aware of any other disease infection risks associated with my garlic. Keep in mind I grew about 70 different kinds this year, collected from all corners of the globe, and anything is possible.
Okay, all warning and disclaimers aside, if you are interested please send me an email and I will send you a list of the varieties I still have. This offer is until the end of September 2007, but please contact me as soon as possible. Last year I made a similar offer, and I was able to send everyone who asked what they wanted. If a lot of people contact me with requests, I may have to limit quantities or stop accepting requests.
As far as payment, mostly I am expecting you to pay postage and packaging costs, perhaps slightly ’rounded up’. You need to pay in cash, and I can accept most common currencies but certainly Euros, UK Pounds and US Dollars. No coins, only notes. Please contact me, and I will give you an estimate of costs.
If you have already contacted me about getting some of my planting stock, there’s no need to send another email. I’m still working on sorting out the requests I already have.
This is a Rocombole type garlic.
This garlic must get it’s name from the occasional black (gray) splotches on the skin, which you can see on the bulb to the right.
The original planting stock I got from The Garlic Store was absolutely huge, the largest bulb of garlic I have ever seen besides elephant garlic. This store is located in Colorado, and perhaps that’s home to this variety. All the cloves I planted produced healthy bulbs, but nothing approaching the original bulb. Perhaps when this one gets acclimated it will get larger.
This is a very promising garlic.
