Well, I got my package from Saltmarsh today, and I'm just knocked out by how much work he put into this. These plants are very beautiful, and once I've planted them in pots or in the ground, I'll have some photos to post...
...All of which makes me more than a bit embarrassed to say, I've looked over all the evidence, and these plants are not Crow garlic. They have strappy leaves which closely resemble those of regular garlic, and seem to be too wide to be Allium canadense; besides, they don't have any of that fibrous wrapping around the bulb that A. canadense has, and, and...
This is some kind of a wild allium that has a distinctly garlicky taste, judging by the piece of green leaf I tore off from one specimen, and the plants have a distinctly onion-like smell. Saltmarsh sent me more than I was expecting, really. I already gave one of the four bundles to one of my friends who likes to garden.
I'm seriously considering the possibility that Saltmarsh's wild garlic may be exactly that: common culinary garlic, Allium sativum, that has naturalized in northern Mississippi. I've never heard of A. sativum naturalizing before, but that doesn't necessarily mean it can't, does it? Especially if some farmer just, like, left some behind?
I'm not going to "blame" anything on Saltmarsh, that's for sure. If I'd done my research a bit better and paid better attention, I could've just looked at Saltmarsh's photo attached to post #17 on this thread and known his plants are not Allium vineale, but somehow my brain just wasn't firing on all cylinders at the time...
...All of which basically bothers me not at all. These plants are beautiful, they're garlicky, and they must be easy growers if they're naturalized in "2 miles south of Yoknapatawpha," so whatever they are, I'm going to love them. I'm 100% sure I'm going to love cooking with them, too.
Now that I know they're not "the Rodney Dangerfield of the allium world," I won't worry about them becoming invasive, so I'll probably put a few in a pot, and the rest in my front yard.
So what if they're not Allium vineale? They're purrrrrdy. They smell purrrdy good, too, if you like garlic and onions.
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