Market Farming

["Hartwig" <hartwig AT pioneer.net>]

Hendrik,

We have grown the garlic you refer to for the past 3 years on a 
fairly large scale.  It is called Elephant garlic here in North 
America.Its name according to a seed catalog is Allium 
ampeloprasum  It is more closely related to  the leek than true garlic.  
What I am relating to you is from experience as well as talking to a 
commercial grower who harvested 15+ acres each year. 

Occassionally when the garlic is planted in the fall, you  will get 
some of those "rounds".  The especially large ones we save and 
replant the following fall and get humongous garlic.  If your garlic 
has a shorter growing period, most of it seems to become the rounds.  
My mother planted some last spring and got only the rounds.

We plant during September, mound it so that it doesn't stand in 
waterlogged soil during our wet winters and harvest it during July 
and August of the following year when the tops begin to turn yellow.  
We harvest it before the stems are brown so that the bulb covering 
stays a pretty white.  We hang it in small bunches with baling twine
 in a fairly warm room with lots of air circulation.  When the tops 
are dry and brittle, we cut off the tops about an inch above the 
bulbs, put it on trays and keep in a low humidity area...using a
 dehumidifier so that mildew spots don't form on the bulb.

Elephant garlic does require more work, but we sure do like its 
flavor and it sells well.

Elephant garlic prefers cooler temperatures so that it has time to 
get really large before its growing season is over.  We have very 
long springs here in north western Oregon and the garlic does very
 well.  We regularly get many heads that are 16-22 oz.  When it gets 
hot early in the spring the size of the heads are stunted.  Your 
climate may be too hot for the really impressive harvests.

The little "toenail" sized cloves can be used in cooking  once the
 tough outer skin is cracked.  I haven't ever planted it, but have seen 
it grow as volunteer in our patch.  We haven't experimented with it, 
however.

Linda Hartwig
Meadow Spring Farms
Blodgett OR