Garlic is a great crop to grow in a vegetable garden, as it's fairly easy to grow and in a lot
of contexts it's possible to produce enough garlic to last all year from a relatively small area. I
have been growing the same variety of garlic for many years, and after each harvest I set aside
the largest bulbs so that I can select the largest cloves for planting the following year's crops, in
hopes that I will continue to get a bigger yield. I have been quite happy with this variety garlic,
as it seems to grow quite well, although we do have some issues with diseases occasionally,
but we always end up producing enough and it stores quite well. But I never knew if
this was the best variety of garlic to grow in this location, or if there were
other varieties that would grow or produce better, and perhaps be more disease resistant,
and that we might prefer to use in the kitchen. So this past year I decided to grow 10 different
varieties of garlic to see how they compare to the variety that I have been growing, and
to gain a better understanding of the diversity of different types of garlic that are available.
I can't remember when I originally bought the bulbs of garlic that I have been growing and
saving from, but it's been at least 10 years. Over all of those years I've seen how saving the
biggest bulbs and planting larger cloves have helped to produce bigger yields, and there's
also this idea that the strain that I saving will gradually adapt to the local climate and
conditions, but I'm not so sure about that. I have been growing this garlic in four different gardens
outside, with mixed success, though we generally get a decent yield. Sometimes the overwintering
plants can be damaged by high winds and the harsh conditions that we can get in the winter, and some
of the local birds have taken to pulling out the young cloves before they've developed a strong
root system. So I've learned that it's better to cover them with a crop cover at least for
the winter. Garlic rust is the one disease that can be an issue around here, and it can be worse
some years than others, and this past year has been quite bad, at least in the outside gardens.
I've also had issues of the skin around the mature bulb rotting in the soil when we have really wet
conditions, especially when I don't get around to harvesting in time. I found that the garlic
plants produce much better in the polytunnel, even though that's not a common place to grow
garlic in this climate, as there is much less rust and the plants grow a lot bigger and faster,
and the yields are considerably bigger. I have generally been saving the bulbs for replanting
from this crop in the polytunnel as they are so big, and it's also a big enough crop to be
able to supply everything that we need, so I'm generally not too concerned if the crop outside
doesn't do so well. But I have been wondering if other varieties of garlic might do better, and
be more resistant to the rust, and produce more in both the outside garden and inside the polytunnel.
Late last year when it was getting close to planting garlic I decided to buy in a few new
varieties to try. When I checked the website of my main supplier I saw that there was 10 different
varieties available including the same variety that I have been growing all these years. I could
have picked a few from the selection available, but because this is a research project I figured
it was probably better to get them all, including more of the same variety I have been growing,
to see if there is any difference in the strain. Most of these varieties are soft neck garlic,
which is the most common type of garlic growing here in Ireland, and two of them were hard neck
varieties, which will produce the garlic scapes that people in other countries are
often harvesting for an additional yield, but I've never grown this type before. Most
of these varieties were described as storing well, which is an important characteristic,
and two of the varieties were described as storing well until at least February, which I felt was a
positive way of saying that they don't store very well, because I'm often eating really good quality
garlic from the previous year when the next batch is almost ready to harvest. Most of the
available varieties are from France originally, including the variety that I have been growing,
and the others are from Spain or Italy. I think this might be where there could be differences in
the success of the plants and the yield, as our climate is significantly different from
the climate of Italy or Spain, and it might also be where there is differences in taste.
I planted all 10 varieties of garlic in a bed of the smaller polytunnel in November last year,
selecting 18 large, good quality cloves from each variety to plant, thinking that this was a decent
sample size. I also selected cloves to plant from the strain of garlic that I have been saving,
picking 42 of the larger cloves, and 42 smaller cloves to plant at either end of the variety
trial. This served as a control for the variety trial, and I wanted to see how the clove size
would impact the size of the final bulb, and also to see how it would compare to the bulbs
grown from the same variety that I bought in. This was a really good batch of garlic,
and all the plants and all the varieties grew really well, and there was only a few
cloves that failed to grow but not enough to really affect the results. There was no real
sign of disease or other issues and was really pleased with how they all grew. There was some
variation in the shape of the leaves and the growth habit of the different varieties, and
it was really interesting to see the garlic scapes develop on the top of the two hard neck varieties.
But I left them to grow rather than harvesting them, and this probably had a bit of an impact
on the size of the eventual bulb. There were no noticeable deficiencies, but there were some
yellowing of the leaves, which was more related to the different maturity times of the varieties,
with some varieties maturing earlier where the leaves turn brown, and other varieties continuing
to grow for longer with their leaves remaining green. I could have staggered the harvest times
of each variety based on this observation but I needed the bed for another, crop so I ended
up harvesting all of the varieties at the same time in mid June. I laid out all of the bulbs
in dry conditions outside to begin the drying and curing process, and a few days later I trimmed the
roots and cleaned up the bulbs, more to be able to better evaluate the size and quality of the bulbs.
I eventually tied them up in bundles and hung them undercover to fully dry and cure before weighing.
Seeing all of the garlic laid out like this after harvesting, I was really pleased with all of the
varieties, and I would be happy to grow any of them as the differences only seem to be minor,
and I think this is important There were some obvious differences in the size of the bulbs,
and part of this could have been due to different maturity times,
and some of the bulbs could definitely have been harvested earlier as the skin on the bulbs were
splitting. After drying and weighing everything it was really interesting to see that seven of
the varieties that I grew from bought in bulbs were all of about the same weight,
being very close to 100 grams per bulb on average, which is a really good size for garlic. The other
three varieties that I bought in had average bulb weight that was significantly higher,
more than 30% extra garlic, which is really significant The plants from the cloves of the
strain that I've been saving for many years were close to this higher yield, at least for
the plants that grew from the larger cloves. But the bulbs that grew from the smaller cloves of
this saved strain, were about the same size as the bulbs that grew from the store-bought cloves
of the same variety. I would have expected more from the strain that I've been saving for so many
years, but it looks like at least three of the varieties can produce as much, if not more more,
without this localised adaptation, at least based on this one trial in the polytunnel.
I also planted all of these varieties in three of the outside gardens, but as the beds in each of
the gardens were smaller, there weren't as many of each variety, so the sample size was smaller.
I planted these later than in the polytunnel, as distractions took me away from the gardens
for a while, and by the time I planted them the cloves were not in great shape. Some were
developing roots already, and some shoots were appearing ,and the cloves of one variety were
in really poor shape and none of the plants of this variety made it through the winter in any
of the gardens. There were some other casualties, or plants that didn't make it through the winter,
even under the crop cover, and the plants that did survive were not so uniform,
with some plants being significantly larger than others, no doubt due to the poor start. All of
the garlic plants got rust eventually and all of the varieties in the three gardens seemed to die
die back earlier than expected, so this part of the trial was compromised in several ways and not
nearly as useful as the one in the polytunnel. But digging up all the plants there were still some
really nice size bulbs, and significant difference in weight once they were all dried, but I'm not
going to put too much value on the results of this compromised trial. It was interesting that
even with all the issues two of the varieties that did really well in the polytunnel also did
well in the outside gardens on average, and another variety also did reasonably well. I
also planted cloves from the strain that I've been saving for so many years, but I was not impressed
with the yield compared to the store-bought varieties, which was really disappointing.
Because I was interested in the relationship between the clove size and the eventual weight,
I had weighed all of the selected cloves for each variety before planting into the polytunnel.
Comparing the clove size to the resulting bulb weight, there seemed to be a direct correlation
between the two, with the three plantings of the same variety with almost a straight line increase.
This seems to indicate that the increase in yields that I've noticed over the years probably comes
mostly from the fact that I've been growing bigger cloves to plant for the following season, and not
because the strain is adapting. Comparing the other nine varieties in the same way shows that
five other varieties are clustered approximately along the same line, following more or less the
same clove to bulb size ratio. One variety was significantly below this line producing some of
the lower yields even though it started with some of the larger clothes, and unless there's some
other factor involved it seems that this variety is lower yielding in this context. The three
varieties that had produced some of the higher yields were all significantly above this line
because they had started with some of the smallest clothes. I think this is really interesting,
especially compared to the similar size bulbs that were growing from the largest cloves from
the strain that I have been saving. If I can expect the yields to increase at a similar rate
if I'm able to plant larger size clothes, then the yields from these varieties could increase quite
a bit more. And the other variety that did well outside also started from really small clothes,
so it seems from this trial that four of the varieties are definitely worth growing again.
Selecting those four varieties is based on yield, which is important but not the only
factor of course. The taste or the strength of the garlic, and the potential for different
uses in the kitchen, is also important. There are definite differences in flavour,
but it's not something that I've been able to really explore enough yet. Comparing the taste
or flavour of crops like tomatoes is relatively easy, and quite enjoyable for a lot of people,
but it's not really the same with garlic Cutting open a sample of all of the different varieties,
it's interesting to see the different pattern and shapes of the cloves within the bulbs,
and the different colours. It is interesting to see that some of the varieties produce some
really large clothes, and other varieties seem to produce a greater number of consistently
smaller cloves. Selecting one or the other depends on what is more useful in the kitchen,
and it indicates that some of the varieties may never produce really large cloves,
which could affect the ultimate size that they could end up growing to. Storability is another
important factor and it'll be interesting to see how long these different varieties will last
before the cloves start to go soft or sprout. But based on the results from the polytunnel it looks
like there could be three maybe four varieties that could produce a lot more than the variety
I've been growing for all these years. And that is a very useful result of this experiment,
especially as I now have my own bulbs from all 10 varieties, which will hopefully produce
larger cloves that I can plant in the next few weeks for next year's crop. Hopefully I
will get much better results from the outside gardens next year, especially if I can see if
some of the varieties can produce better even, when the crop is badly affected by garlic rust,
as I think that is one of the key issues when growing garlic outside in this context.
So, an annual garlic variety trial has become another repeating exploration within this RED
Gardens project, and I'm not really sure when it'll end. Is one more year enough? I seem to
be quite good at adding more to this project, but not so great at deciding when I've explored
something enough and moving on. But there is a limit to how many things I can start,
care for and keep track of in any year, especially as the funding for this project is limited,
mainly coming through this YouTube channel. If you like these videos, and want to support the
work that we do in the gardens, the usual liking, sharing subscribing and commenting
all definitely help. But the main source of funding comes from a small group of people,
through regular contributions on Patreon and one-off contributions with PayPal.
This project would not exist without them. If you are willing, and have the spare resources
to be able to join them, please check out the links in the video description below. I want to
thank everyone who has supported this project in the past, and I want to thank you for watching.