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  • From: "Hartwig" <hartwig AT pioneer.net>
  • To: market-farming AT franklin.oit.unc.edu
  • Subject: Re: elephant garlic
  • Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2000 17:36:27 +0000


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



  • Re: elephant garlic, Hartwig, 02/25/2000

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