Need to feed back on some garlic varieties
 

Ok....here's what I got in way of garlic for seed at a garlic festival in Stratford Ontario today

Brown Saxony
Siberian
Killarney Red
Pitarelli
Georgian Crystal (Porcelain)
Floha
Khabar
Hungarian Rose
Brown Rose
Japanese
Asian Tempest
Musical? Music?
Fish Lake 4
Metechi

I admit I don't know much about the individual varieties, but if anybody can fill me with personal preferences/comments I'd appreciate it. Going to sample a few too.

Music is the 'standard' garlic for this area. Most of the seedhouses in Eastern Canada sell this variety. By comparison with many of the other varieties, it has small sized heads, but large cloves for it's size. It consider it mild in taste (others may not agree) and a respectable producer. It is a long storage type.

Zana, here's a link to a Seeds of Diversity (Canada) article on garlic in Ontario. Although it probably won't give you all the answers you would like, it does give some insight into garlic in Southern Ontario.
[URL]http://www.seeds.ca/library/articles/2004_03_Dyer_Garlic.htm[/URL]

[QUOTE=bluelacedredhead;144207]Music is the 'standard' garlic for this area. Most of the seedhouses in Eastern Canada sell this variety. By comparison with many of the other varieties, it has small sized heads, but large cloves for it's size. It consider it mild in taste (others may not agree) and a respectable producer. It is a long storage type.

Zana, here's a link to a Seeds of Diversity (Canada) article on garlic in Ontario. Although it probably won't give you all the answers you would like, it does give some insight into garlic in Southern Ontario.
[URL]http://www.seeds.ca/library/articles/2004_03_Dyer_Garlic.htm[/URL][/QUOTE]

Thanks, hadn't thought to check out the SoD site.

Most of the growers selling garlic were selling Music there. There were only a handful with all the other varieties. Because I didn't get around to all of them that early, since I was working the parking lot for the Kiwanis Club before that, I'm sure sure I missed out on quite a few varieties. Oh well. Next year.

music is popular with growers because of its yield. big bulbs, big cloves.
i've grown it several years, and like it.
georgian crystal, and asian tempest are 2 other hard necks that i have grown for several years. they both can produce large bulbs, usually 4 to 6 cloves with some zing to them.
all 3 did pretty well for me in the U.P.
siberian i've grown a couple years, and i think its a good one. it really has strong root structure. you'll notice it when you harvest next year.
brown rose was sent as a replacement one year from seed savers, when some of the garlic they sent me was moldy. bulbs were just medium size for me. it was decent, but not in my top ten list.


keith

Here are some sites that give a description of dozens of garlic varieties:

[url]http://www.wegrowgarlic.com/catalog[/url]

[url]http://www.gourmetgarlicgardens.com/varietys.htm[/url]

TomNJ

[QUOTE=rxkeith;144229]music is popular with growers because of its yield. big bulbs, big cloves.
i've grown it several years, and like it.
georgian crystal, and asian tempest are 2 other hard necks that i have grown for several years. they both can produce large bulbs, usually 4 to 6 cloves with some zing to them.
all 3 did pretty well for me in the U.P.
siberian i've grown a couple years, and i think its a good one. it really has strong root structure. you'll notice it when you harvest next year.
brown rose was sent as a replacement one year from seed savers, when some of the garlic they sent me was moldy. bulbs were just medium size for me. it was decent, but not in my top ten list.


keith[/QUOTE]

thanks for the feedback, Keith

Zana

the only 2 i have grown in your list is music and georgian crystal.

music is pretty hot, large bulbs and very large cloves. stores pretty long time a good 7 to 8 months before starting to sprout.

georgian crystal has always produced small bulbs and the taste is ok. i stopped growing it as it was not producing a good size bulb compared to others.

here's another garlic site for looking up varieties - [URL="http://sev.lternet.edu/%7Ejnekola/Heirloom/garlicC.htm"]http://sev.lternet.edu/~jnekola/Heirloom/garlicC.htm[/URL]

btw, if you want long storage softnecks are the best and the artichoke varieties have larger and less cloves per bulb than silverskins. i'm trying an artichoke this year and hope it's a replacement for nootka rose a great keeper but small bulbs/cloves and lots of small interior cloves that is typical for a sliverskin.

tom