Rant: I just read that a single head of garlic can have up to 20 cloves

Found it in a seed catalog from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, and now I'm questioning every 'clove' I've ever prepped. Has anyone actually grown a variety that produces that many?

3 comments

3 Comments

andrew63915d ago

Okay that's wild, but honestly it tracks. Last year I tried growing some hardneck variety from a local farm swap, and the bulbs were absolutely packed. Not quite twenty, but way more than the usual five or six from the grocery store. Makes you realize how much flavor we're missing out on with the standard stuff. Those seed catalogs are dangerous for making you want to rip up the whole yard and plant garlic.

skyler_thomas14d ago

Seriously, my buddy did that last year. He ordered some weird purple stripe garlic from a catalog, got obsessed, and turned his entire side garden into a garlic patch. He ended up with these massive bulbs that had like fifteen cloves each. His kitchen smelled insane for weeks.

alicew686d ago

Purple stripe garlic is actually a hardneck type, like what Andrew mentioned. The cloves are usually bigger but there are fewer per bulb, maybe eight to ten. Your friend's fifteen-clove bulbs sound more like a softneck variety, which is what you often find at the store.