[svalli]

It has been really enjoyable to follow PH's ingenuity in the process of finding the most suitable ways to become serious garlic farmer. My garlic growing is just for a hobby, but I have learned a lot of the methods by reading this and the earlier thread.

Growing garlic in small farm scale is becoming more popular also here, when vegetable farmers are finding new crops to sell at the local farmers' markets. Many people are nowadays ready to pay a bit more for locally grown fresh produce, which hopefully is good also for the farmers. Most farmers here are planting hardnecks, because of our cold winters. I know some people who have been growing spring planted softnecks to sell, but since the harvest of those will be later, drying and curing will be more difficult. I myself like cooking with hardnecks more because of the larger cloves, but I am not sure if the average consumer here knows that there is a difference between types of garlic.

Climate in France is well suited for softnecks, but they do like also hardneck varieties like Ail rose de Lautrec. Some people even say that it is the best tasting garlic grown in France. I planted 40 Pink Lautrec cloves last fall and 30 of those came up this spring, so it is not really hardy. This year I should have enough harvest to taste it and decide, if I will keep growing it regardless of the poor hardiness. I have way too many varieties in my collection, so I should stop growing the ones which do not well here.

Sari