I’ve published a number of articles related to growing garlic here on this site, so I thought that I knew a little bit about gourmet garlic and growing it in the home garden. But after listening to a workshop on garlic presented by David Stern of the Garlic Seed Foundation, I realized that there is much more to discover about the workings of this amazing plant.

I’ve recently posted a couple of articles containing gourmet garlic growing tips for planting fall garlic and strategies for obtaining the best garlic seed stock. I wanted to follow-up by sharing some of my favorite gourmet garlic varieties for growing in the home garden.

The last entry discussed the huge advantages of growing gourmet garlic and provided techniques for planting fall garlic, today I’ll share a few tips for buying the best gourmet garlic seed.

Here in Central Pennsylvania it’s almost time to plant the fall garlic seed that will grow into enormous cloves of delicious gourmet garlic by the middle of next summer. Sure you can plant garlic next spring, but in most areas you’ll get healthier plants, larger cloves, and better results from a fall sowing of this cold hardy root vegetable.

The gourmet garlic plants have begun sending up their seed stalks which are commonly referred to as garlic scapes. While some garlic growers leave the scapes on the plants, I always remove them as they appear during the early summer months.

Need to find a creative use for those left over garlic bulbs that you stored but didn’t get around to using during the winter months?
Here’s an idea; plant the extra garlic cloves out in the garden and grow a crop of delicious baby garlics.
Teaching Old Garlic New Tricks
By now the garlic that was harvested last summer is [...]

Think you’re a garlic lover? Well here’s a surprise for you, if you use store bought garlic cloves, you haven’t experienced really great tasting garlic. For that you have to sample a variety or two of the gourmet garlics that you’ll never find on the shelves of your local supermarket, but can be easily grown in [...]