Sunday, January 02, 2011

Very Special Garlic

Well, it is to us!
When we bought this wee farm five years ago, the previous owners had planted a lot of garlic. It was hard neck garlic and we didn't know at the time but this garlic is actually pretty difficult to grow. Conditions must have been favourable ( because we knew stuff all) and we got a good crop and after sharing it with friends and using it ourselves we've managed to keep a little each year to plant on. Until 2 years ago. Then we were lucky enough that one of our friends, Wendy, could spare a bulb of one of the original garlics we'd passed to her, and we planted it and kept our fingers crossed. The cloves grew beautifully and we got another year. Then, last year we ate a lot of it and what we thought we'd kept just dried out to nothing :( It was the end of an era. It was an old Heritage variety and we didn't know exactly which one, other than it's a purple stripe,  so that was that. But No! When we planted our garlic way back in June little did we know we were actually planting a few precious cloves of the hard neck that had been passed around over the last 5 years and up it came - yippee! So we have a very few, beautiful, precious hard neck bulbs of garlic ( one of which we will store very carefully for planting in June, all going well) And surprisingly they have done SO much better than the supposed easy to grow more ordinary soft neck variety which I'm leaving in the ground for now as it is much smaller and pretty mediocre, meh!




These are little bubils which grow up the stalk - they taste just like garlic so you can put them on salads - yummy.

Our little vegetable miracle.

9 comments:

  1. what a lovely story! they look amazing! good enough to make a painting of...such pretty colours! we werre too late to plant ours this year due to the ground being frozen over! well there is always next year eh!

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  2. I use garlic almost everyday. Of course it is not as beautiful as your garlic.

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  3. I use garlic almost everyday. Of course it is not as beautiful as your garlic.

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  4. They look very nice....lucky!

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  5. Anonymous4:10 pm

    That is some very nice looking garlic.

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  6. That's some fabulous looking garlic Laura, you are right to be super proud. I have promised myself I'll give some a go this year, although I've had it on good advice that Brisbane is perhaps not the place for garlic.

    I'm going to stick mine in the crisper for a few months to simulate winter!

    Are you making anything special with it?

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  7. I just left a comment on your other blog, and then found this one. What a lovely journey through your farm life.

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  8. Hi Laura, beautiful looking garlic, glad i was of some help with the bulbs i gave you. Mine is not looking too good yet as I was late planting i am also hoping the rains is not going to root the bulbs just as they are ready,they like the dry in the last few months. hey i have just had an enquiry for my VETIVER GRASS from the editor of N.Z. Lifestyle block.. WHEN not if i get an order we must go out on the town for dinner. best wishes Wendz xx

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I love it when you leave me comments, it lets me know there are folk out there reading my ramblings! Thank you, I appreciate them loads and loads
Laura x