Garlic orders open July 1!
There are myriad reasons humans have consumed garlic for thousands of years.
For starters, it’s easy to grow, easy to harvest, easy to use, and, yes, easy to enjoy. And this year Seed Savers Exchange is making it easy to order, too—we’re offering seven garlic varieties (four porcelain and three purple-stripe) for sale. Orders open Monday, July 1, at seedsavers.org; mark your calendar!
Porcelain garlic typically has bulbs with thick, bright-white skin. Bulbs have at least four cloves that are bold in flavor when raw or cooked. Porcelain garlic is cold-tolerant and stores for about eight months.
Purple-stripe garlics include glazed purple-stripe, marbled purple-stripe, and standard purple-stripe subgroups. Off-white bulbs have some degree of purple striping and deep-purple to red clove wrappers. This garlic type excels when baked or roasted.
PORCELAIN VARIETIES
Georgian Crystal
The beautiful, large, and cold-hardy ‘Georgian Crystal’ bulbs store very well and resist most of the common pests and diseases that afflict garlic. This variety produces four to eight large cloves that have a mild flavor when raw and a delicious buttery flavor when roasted. The bulbs have shiny white skin, sometimes streaked with purple on the inner layers.
Georgian Fire
This robust and cold-hardy variety delivers powerful flavor and has four to six impressively large, easy-to-peel cloves per bulb. It has a pleasant hotness perfect for salsas and stores well into late winter. Plump cloves are covered in tan, purple-streaked skins, while the bulb is wrapped in white, tissuey covers.
Krasnodar White
The productive ‘Krasnodar White’ is an excellent cooking garlic. It delivers medium heat and tastes peppery when raw, nutty and starchy when roasted. Bulbs have large cloves and a long shelf life.
Music
The vigorous ‘Music’ garlic hits all the right notes—it produces jumbo-sized cloves, stores very well, tolerates cold, and has a spicy robust flavor. Thick, tightly wrapped skins are easy to peel, have a creamy white color, and encase four to five rose-colored cloves per head. This variety makes a perfect addition to soups, sauces, stir fries, marinades, and dips.
PURPLE-STRIPE VARIETIES
Belarus
‘Belarus’ boasts a rich “garlicky” flavor; it is delightfully mellow when raw and sweet when roasted. Thick, white outer bulb wrappers develop purple stripes that increase in intensity closer to the cloves, with the clove covers bearing a deep reddish-purple color. Bulbs will store through the winter.
Chesnok Red (also known as Shvelisi)
The aromatic and flavorful ‘Chesnok Red’ is an excellent baking and cooking garlic. Large, easy-to-peel cloves keep their shape and develop a sweet, full-bodied flavor when cooked, making this garlic a good addition to many types of dishes. Bulbs are white on the outside with eight to ten red cloves inside. Bulbs store well (up to six months).
Krasnodar Red
Quite hot when eaten raw, this garlic has a pleasantly strong nutty flavor when roasted or baked. Its full-bodied flavor lingers and is retained after cooking. The creamy texture of ‘Krasnodar Red’ makes it a great choice for baking. Easy-to-peel bulbs are wrapped in attractive, striped wrappers that surround pink-skinned cloves. This garlic stores well (up to six months).