Garlic

Photo Credit: Irish Eyes Garden Seeds

Regularly wins acclaim and awards as one of the best tasting baking/roasting garlics!

Collected in 1985 in the Rep. of Georgia, this highly productive, easy-to-grow ‘Purple-Striped’ garlic makes beautiful, large deep-purple bulbs. Eaten raw, its intense heat quickly dissipates, but cooking and baking truly bring out its earthy, rich garlic complexities, very aromatic with a rich, smooth sweetness and just a touch of heat.

The cloves are more numerous (~8-20) and elongated than most hard-neck types and are initially hard to peel, allowing Chesnok Red to store much longer than other hard-necks – up to a year! But cloves become easier to peel the longer they store. Like other hard-neck varieties, it also produces curling, edible ‘scapes’ in June. Garlic is a  heavy feeder, so feed your soil well!

Plants are vigorous and upright, can handle a little neglect, an are great multipliers, growing large bulbs from even medium-sized cloves.

Garlic planting instructions

Credit, Irish Eyes Garden Seed

One of the best hard-neck garlics for flavor and keeping, this robust and extra-hardy heirloom variety in the Porcelain group offers large, impressive 2.5 to 3” bulbs with 4-6 easy-to-peel jumbo cloves for easy kitchen use. Beautiful well-formed bulbs are wrapped in thick white luxuriant parchment-like skins with inner layers splashed red-purple, almost too beautiful to eat. Cloves are usually striped with purple.

Flavor is rich, garlicky, and medium hot. Grows well in any climate. Stores at least 6 months, up to 8 to 9 months when stored properly (in a cool dark place).

Garlic planting instructions

Metechi Garlic, courtesy Irish Eyes Garden Seeds

Garlic planting instructions

Photo Credit: Irish Eyes Garden Seeds

Nootka Rose is a beautifully colored ‘Silver-Skin’ garlic created at Nootka Rose Farm on the San Juan Islands in Puget Sound, WA and is considered an heirloom variety. Known for its rich, warm, bold flavor and exceptional aroma, it excels as a cooking garlic. Thick, creamy white wrappers cover beautiful, red-streaked clove skins that are easy to peel, and the large bulbs tend to yield anywhere from 15-24 cloves each. Nootka Rose is very long-storing, from 9 to 12 months, is ideal for braiding, and grows well in all parts of the country except those with the warmest winters.

Nootka Rose is usually the last garlic to mature and be harvested and is often, if not usually, the longest storing garlic of all. Because it is a long storing variety, you might want to grow some and save them for the time when your other varieties have already sprouted and are no longer in an ideal eating condition.

Garlic planting instructions

Photo Credit, Irish Eyes Garden Seed

Musik garlic from Starling Farm, Boulder
We are thrilled to offer one of our favorite hardneck garlic varieties from the farm of one of our favorite local musicians, Gregory Alan Isakov! Starling Farm, located in Boulder County, Colorado, is a six-acre farm focused on small-scale, bio-intensive market gardening. They produce a wide variety of vegetables, seeds and flowers—all grown with organic practices and high integrity. This year, 2022, marks their eighth growing season.

Musik is one of the most popular hard-neck varieties, a “Garlic Lovers” garlic, prized for being incredibly flavorful, well-developed, complex and spicy, without any bitterness. Flavor ranges from spicy when raw to a hot and aromatic, true gourmet garlic flavor when cooked; one clove can add a lot of flavor to any recipe! A porcelain type, it is exceptionally cold-hardy, productive and robust; plants can reach 3-4’ tall with dark green leaves stabilized by long roots. White-skinned with a blush of pink, bulbs are 2” diameter or larger, with 4-5 easy-to-peel jumbo cloves. Musik is easy to grow and keeps well until April or May when stored properly, up to 9 months to a year.

Musik has a notably high content of allicin, a powerful antioxidant and cold & flu fighter.
Harvest when lower 4-5 leaves have dried. Dry and hang out of direct light in a warm area with good air circulation. After they have dried for 2-3 weeks, cut off the stem, 1″ from the bulb and trim roots.

Garlic planting instructions

Morado Creole, courtesy Irish Eyes Garden Seeds

Morado Creole, with its deep purple cloves, is the reportedly the best Creole variety for cold-season growing. With a mild-spicy flavor, it’s great for eating raw in recipes. Morado Creole is a long storing garlic, originally from Spain.

Like most garlic, it’s a heavy feeder, so be sure to fertilize.

Garlic planting instructions