Hello, today I'm going to show you how to grow her elephant garlic. I'm Liz Zorab
and this is Byther Farm. Elephant garlic is part of the Allium family, so onions
leeks and that sort of thing and far from actually being a garlic is actually
a member of the leek family and it produces wonderfully large bulbs that
are edible. They've got a very mild garlicky flavor and you can use the
leaves or you can use the bulb.Most people grow it for the bulb so this is
one Erica from Erica's Little Welsh Garden. She grew this last year and has
given it to me so I'm going to grow mine in two different ways this year. I'm
going to grow one bulb which I'm going to plant and then I will harvest next
summer and the other one I'm going to plant and I'm going to leave in the
ground and allow each each of the each of the cloves to form much bigger plants
and grow them as perennials. So much like garlic it will have cloves in it, it will
also produce little bulbils at the side which I'm going to save and plant
this as well. It'll take longer to reach maturity but it will get there. When you
break open the elephant garlic bulb you get these huge huge cloves to plant
which is great.And when you cook these they have got just a beautiful taste but
if you roast them, they do that lovely caramelized thing that garlic
cloves do but a much much milder taste. So I'm going to start by marking out
the line of where I want to plant these elephant garlic's I like not just those
I'm putting in today I'm going to put in some ordinary garlic some onion sets and
some shallots so I'm going to try and get really organized today.
It's very simple to plant, you make a hole, now I like to plant mine four to six inches
deep so that's four to six inches soil above the top of the clove so I'm
working on the basis of this is the the depth of the hole the clove will go here
I need to go a little bit more than that there we go and they need about eight to
ten inches apart so I'm going to go the length of my trowel just because I do
have the luxury of that much space and it's worth spacing them out because
enough and guard it really doesn't like to be cramped doesn't like to be crowded
by other plants it likes space to expand and to flourish
so once you've made your hole for planting it it's just as simple as
popping it in the hole covering over remember to mark the row.
As with all garlic and onions it's a pointy end up and the flat end
at the bottom which has got the little root base on it.
Now they will produce
flower stalks which called scapes, so a stem will come up out of the middle
with a with a flower bud on it. Cut those off because it will divert
energy away from the bulb but don't throw them away. You can use them in the
same way now you would use any other garlic scape, so you can stir-fry them
and now absolutely delicious.
I'm also going to push a stick in here to remind
me that that first section is elephant garlic and the rest of this row is something else.
And when the second bulb I got from Erica, I'm gonna put it in this bed which
is a perennial herbaceous border it's a couple of small very small low-growing
shrubs in it but everything else is herbaceous I'm going to grow these as
perennials in here and they'll come up during the winter they'll be there in
the spring and then it will start dying back at around the same time as some of
the larger herbaceous perennials will really get going
so hopefully this won't feel crowded the clothes on this are huge they're really
good there are a couple of bow bells which I'll save and grow
perhaps I'll mock them at that end of the bed so I know what they are so I've
got five large cloves and 1 2 3 bulbils from this, that's great! So here we go.
And again planting it nice and deeply.
This is duck bedding, used duck bedding that I've put on here as a mulch. It will
help suppress some of the weeds so I've cleared a little space in it for that
elephant garlic to be able to grow up through it.
The ground in this area is quite free draining. Elephant garlic doesn't like sitting in a waterlogged soil.
So although our field is quite clay-ey, luckily this area drains fairly freely.
Where should I pop this other one! Let's pop it across here.
So that's the elephant garlic in, really pleased about that and now I'll crack on
with some of the other onion family.
Once it's planted how you just wait and let it grow, it should shake off the
frost fine and will start growing with quite wide strap like leaves very like leeks.
And then you're going to harvest it mid to late next summer
unless you want to grow it as a perennial in which case you'll leave it
let it grow on and then the year afterwards you can start harvesting
from the outside or you can just let it grow into a really nice big clump and
then harvest the largest ones.