GARLIC - a gardener's notebook
ELEPHANT GARLIC
This is a different allium species and not technically garlic at all. Books and magazine articles will say it needs well-drained soil but in fact it is happy in really wet soil. As well as 'normal' garlic bulbs - with oversize cloves - it makes small bulbils with a very tough case round the base. These can be planted in an odd corner - they can take 2 years to come up, but will then develop into proper bulbs. This is a useful way of increasing your stock without sacrificing edible cloves.
Used raw or lightly cooked, elephant garlic can cause bad flatulence - but not if it's well cooked. Large whole cloves with their mild taste are good in a dish of mixed roasted winter veg.
Elephant garlic enjoys full sun and a rich soil, like its more familiar cousin. Plant about 8-9ins (or 20cm) apart putting the cloves in at least 4ins (10cm) down. Water if the weather is very dry. Lift the cloves at the end of summer after the foliage has started to die down. Though elephant garlic is less vulnerable to wet conditions than ordinary garlic, it is subject to very much the same diseases. In growth the leaves look like a larger version of ordinary garlic, and the bulbs when lifted are again familiar looking, but each individual clove may be as large as a hen's egg.
If you have bought a clove or two, work up a stock of cloves to plant by eating only a small proportion of your first crop. Keep most of your harvest to plant again the next year. Expect to harvest about 6 cloves for every one you plant - a smaller rate of return than that offered by traditional garlic, which is why cloves are expensive to buy.
This is a different allium species and not technically garlic at all. Books and magazine articles will say it needs well-drained soil but in fact it is happy in really wet soil. As well as 'normal' garlic bulbs - with oversize cloves - it makes small bulbils with a very tough case round the base. These can be planted in an odd corner - they can take 2 years to come up, but will then develop into proper bulbs. This is a useful way of increasing your stock without sacrificing edible cloves.
Used raw or lightly cooked, elephant garlic can cause bad flatulence - but not if it's well cooked. Large whole cloves with their mild taste are good in a dish of mixed roasted winter veg.
Elephant garlic enjoys full sun and a rich soil, like its more familiar cousin. Plant about 8-9ins (or 20cm) apart putting the cloves in at least 4ins (10cm) down. Water if the weather is very dry. Lift the cloves at the end of summer after the foliage has started to die down. Though elephant garlic is less vulnerable to wet conditions than ordinary garlic, it is subject to very much the same diseases. In growth the leaves look like a larger version of ordinary garlic, and the bulbs when lifted are again familiar looking, but each individual clove may be as large as a hen's egg.
If you have bought a clove or two, work up a stock of cloves to plant by eating only a small proportion of your first crop. Keep most of your harvest to plant again the next year. Expect to harvest about 6 cloves for every one you plant - a smaller rate of return than that offered by traditional garlic, which is why cloves are expensive to buy.
