Beautiful & Luxurious

Porcelain garlic bulbs may be the most beautiful of all, and sometimes even seem too beautiful to eat. Their bulb wrappers are thick, luxuriant and parchment-like, and they tightly cover their few, but very large, cloves. The outer bulb wrappers are often very white to milky and light tan. These queenly garlic bulbs usually contain no smaller cloves, as most cloves are large (four to six per bulb), fat and juicy, which makes them a great favorite with foodies and chefs.

 

Great Eating Garlic

Porcelain garlic varieties tend to be very richly flavored with an earthy muskiness. Most are considered to have a heat level similar to that of medium salsa when eaten raw, but the heat mellows out quite a bit when cooked or baked.

 

Great Storing Garlic

Porcelain garlic bulbs store longer than most other hardneck cultivars, and are often useable through March or April when stored properly. Porcelains are also the densest of all garlics, and weigh more per unit of volume than the other varieties.

 

Most Healthful Garlic

Research has shown that Porcelains are superior medicinal garlics. There are lots of reasons to grow your own Porcelain garlics, but this cultivar's elevated allicin levels that bring great health benefits to your table is by far the best reason!

 

Great, Easy Growing Garlic

Garlic in the Porcelain family are very hardy and will grow well in most of the USA, but get larger the further north they are grown. Even so, they also do well in most areas of the south, although they are "iffy" in places like Florida, South Texas, and the warmer winter parts of California. Porcelain garlics are also unique in that the scapes they produce coil in all kinds of ways and resemble a bed of snakes before straightening up and becoming vertical. They also tend to have few but large cloves, which is sometimes a limitation because a large clove may be more than you want to use. Also, keep in mind that because it weighs more, and each bulb contains fewer cloves, you must save back a larger percentage of your total crop for planting stock the following year than you do with other cultivars. Porcelains harvest later in the season and are usually over 2.5" in diameter, but 3" bulbs are not unusual.

Vivid Colors & Sharp Flavors

Rocambole garlic bulbs tend to have thinner wrappers than Porcelains with lots of purple or pink striping and splotches. Their whites are also not as white as other hardnecks, and they often have a brownish cast to their cloves. Some varieties almost look as though they need a bath! What they lack in conventional garlic beauty, they make up for in taste though. Rocambole varieties often have sharp, vivid colors that alert us to their strong, rich and deep flavor.

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Great in Cold-Climates with Unique Scapes

Rocambole garlic bulbs do not grow well in warmer climates. They require a colder winter and a cooler spring than most other varieties. In the spring, Rocamboles send up a scape that forms a complete double loop — they're the only garlics that do a double loop. They also have usually eight to ten cloves arranged in spiral fashion around the central scape.

 

Shorter Storing Garlic
The upside of Rocamboles is that they're generally the easiest peeling varieties, but the primary drawback, other than being a little fussy about soil conditions, is that they are generally shorter storing that Porcelains; usually only remaining usable for 5–6 months from harvest, seldom storing beyond New Years Day.

 

Great Preserving Garlic
Rocamboles are excellent for slicing and dehydrating, and will store for years once dehydrated and kept dry. Dehydrated slices can also be ground into a superb garlic powder that is so good, you won't ever want to buy grocery store garlic powder again! They also make fabulous pickled garlic that gets better tasting every year for about five years.

 

True Garlic Spicy Flavor

Even though Rocamboles are a little more particular about growing conditions and have a shorter storage life than some other varieties, they more than make up for any of their shortcomings with their flavor. It truly must be experienced to be believed! The firey depth is remarkable, and Rocamboles generally have an earthy muskiness about them that no other varieties have.​ This variety is said to have a "true" garlic flavor that sets the bar high for other varieties. In fact, many people consider Rocamboles to be their favorite garlics because of their very rich, "true garlic," intense taste, and they're excellent in any dish where the object is to showcase some garlic flavor.

The Original Garlic with Distinctive Looks

Genetic analysis has shown that Purple Stripe garlic is the original, heirloom variety that all other varieties are derived from. The bulbs are usually vividly colored with purple, vertical stripes decorating the thick wrappers. Between the purple stripes, the wrappers are usually bright white. Coloration is affected by growing conditions thought, particularly by the weather, so sometimes they are strongly colored, and other times they're more white than purple. 

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Beautiful Inside and Out

Purple Stripe bulbs tend to be very beautiful with bright, straight purple streaks on both the bulbs and the cloves. And while the cloves teand to be smaller than those of the Porcelain cultivars, they are still fairly easy to peel. The varieties in this family also tend to have extremely long clove cover tips that can reach up to 1" up the scape, which can be very helpful in identifying them.

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Heat Balanced with Sweet

Purple Stripe garlics are great (our favorite) for turning into delicious, sticky, glorious black garlic, and are known as being the best for baking. Garlic varieties in the Purple Stripe family add a unique "sweet heat" to dishes when cooked or baked.

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Consistent Growing and Good Storage
Purple Stripe garlics grow consistently well in most of the northern USA, and tend to mature about midway through the local harvest season. They thrive best where the winters are the coldest and snowiest, and scape removal in early-June is important to ensure maximum bulb size. Bulbs also store very well; longer than Rocamboles, but shorter than Porcelains.

Shimmery Bulb Wrappers

Glazed Purple Stripe garlic is a small family of strongly bolting hardnecks that are generally known for their iridescent, or matte metallic, looking purple and white streaked bulb wrappers. The shimmery appearance makes them seem like something out of a fairytale -- we've even nicknamed ours "Unicorn Garlic!"

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The Colder the Better

Glazed Purple Stripe bulbs, like all hardneck garlic varieties, require cold temperatures in order to thrive, but this variety really, really loves the cold and snow, similar to their Purple Stripe cousins! Temperature and growing conditions influence the surface appearance of Glazed Purple Stripe bulbs and cloves quite a bit more than other cultivars, so in colder years you may have lots of shimmer, and in warmer years it may be more subdued.

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Unbeatable Roasting Garlic

The varieties in the Glazed Purple Stripe family tend to be rather rich, warm and sweet in flavor, and not overly hot or sulfurous. They definitely make the sweetest roasting garlics of all too. Some varieties, like Belarus, are so sweet when roasted, they can be added to vanilla ice cream to create the texture and taste of butter brickle!

 

Shorter Storage and Delicate Disposition
Glazed Purple Stripes bulbs tend to have larger, stocky cloves, but they will only keep for 3–4 months from harvest, so be sure to use them up first. The varieties of this cultivar also tend to be more delicate than others, and they may be more challenging to grow because the bulb and clove wrappers are thinner, so more care is required when handling them. Glazed Purple Stripes also do not do well in wet soil conditions, so be sure your soil has good drainage if you want to try growing it. Although this may be the most finicky cultivar to grow and process, we think their unique, mild flavor is well worth the extra care and effort!

Beautiful in Form and Taste

Marbled Purple Stripe garlic bulbs look as though they've been splatter painted with dark purple splotches, and they look like edible modern art! They also have a heat and flavor that is very distinctly their own -- some varieties boast so much heat that they can bring tears to the eyes of even the most seasoned garlic lovers. 

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Consistent, Dependable, Storable

Marbled Purple Stripes have grown steadily in popularity due to their consistent clove size, consistent taste, dependable growth in the garden and field, and relatively long storage life of six months or more.

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Heat Through and Through

Varieties of the Marbled Purple Stripe cultivar tend to hold their heat well, and cooking only dampens the punch a little. This family is definitely spicy, and will compliment other bold or spicy flavors and heavier meats and sauces in cooking and baking.

 

Tolerant, Dependable and Easy Growing
Marbled Purple Stripe varieties tend to be more tolerant of wet soil conditions than Rocamboles and some other cultivars. We also find varieties in this family to be dependable soldiers out in the field, strong and confident as they take root very quickly. Additionally, Marbled Purple Stripes are fairly easy growing, low maintenance plants that we've found can produce huge bulbs with minimal effort.

Distinctive and Memorable

Asiatic garlic bulbs are usually medium in size and contain 4–8 deeply colored cloves, sometimes even deep purple. The scape of this cultivar are also very unique because the umbel capsule at the end are usually quite elongated and sometimes contain very large, dark purple bulbils.

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Slightly Shorter Storing

Asiatic garlics tend to have thinner skins and therefore don't store quite as long as some other cultivars. At most, this variety will store 7 months when well and properly cured.

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Heat Like No Other but Sweet Too

Varieties of the Asiatic cultivar tend to have a big, bold bite of heat, and they hold their heat very well even when cooked. Some Asiatics can be hot enough to take your breath away and even make your eyes water! Asiatic garlics compliment other bold, hot flavors such as chili peppers, jalapeño, hot curries, and smoked paprika, and they're most delicious when incorporated into sausage. Surprisingly though, when baked/roasted, Asiatic garlics get rather sweet -- it's like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde!

 

The Early Bird
Asiatic plants tend to be shorter with broad, yellowish-green leaves. They are generally a hardy, easy grower, but they need a little extra attention around harvest time. Because the plants tend to mature earlier as compared to other varieties, they need to be harvested when only a single leaf has gone brown/yellow. If they are left in the ground beyond that point, the outer skins become prone to splitting.