Lol I do the same thing. Found some Spanish garlic last year and I've been trying to get them to adapt to growing in my area. They're slowly coming around. My research has me leaning toward Spanish Morado as the variety.

I also found an artichoke garlic I liked three weeks ago. They were dumped in a sales bin at the local food store. They have lumpy medium to large heads with white skins. They weren't on the cheap side either and I didnt need garlic at the time. Something just posessed me to buy them. They have a good taste and not really on the hot side, though I usually prefer hot garlic.

I've tried Sonoran last year. I really like the taste profile. They are supposed to do well in my area but to me, they don't seem to do as well as a silver skin variety that I grow with Gilroy origins.

They won't grow in the USA Dutch...they are southern hemisphere garlic!! :)

I do wonder though if their 'cycle' would be off from a garlic adapted to the northern hemisphere. You might want to put them in the fridge for a spell to vernalize them before planting.

Hey jack, as though Argentine garlic didn't go south from the northern hemisphere in the first place. Not just to Argentina and other places in South America, but also to New Zealand and Australia. What sold me was a combination of a double portion (!!) and that they were hard necks. I have been cooking with garlic from this source for sometime, since they started offering decent sized bulbs, but always before the garlics were softnecks from the US.

The fridge is a good idea. There is still almost two months before ground around here is ready to plant; so that should be good enough for vernalizing them. I think I will do just that, although I expect they have already had quite a bit of refrigeration, just from the shipping.

The latitudes of the U.S. & Argentina are comparable (if reversed) so garlic grown there should do well here too... and as OldDutch stated, garlic came from the Northern hemisphere originally. I agree that it might take some initial vernalization of the bulbs to help reset their internal clock, and perhaps a season or two for the variety to get fully adapted to our Northern seasons.

"...They are supposed to do well in my area but to me, they don't seem to do
as well as a silver skin variety that I grow with Gilroy origins."

Was that obtained during the Gilroy Garlic Festival? Went there once in the 80's, when I lived in San Jose. Enjoyed it, but wasn't really into garlic then... wish I could get out there now, when I would have a better appreciation of all those wonderful varieties.

Heh heh heh. Even if they don't grow, I got a deal, 2 for 1 or something like that. And they were hardnecks. Goes real well with my hard head.

It was 60 degrees here today. So much for natural vernalization around here! There are cars going through the lake ice right and left, too. Darwin Awards stuff, dontcha know. Happens here every spring, but this year it is so early that the walleye and pike season is still open.

As I sit here thinking about it, I think I will top dress the garlic beds with Milorganite this coming week.

Zeedman, An inlaw went a few years ago. As usual the garlic was meant to be eaten but I had other Ideas. I went to the Gilroy Garlic Fesitval with my parents when I was a kid. It was around the 80s too. Lol The only thing I remember was parking in the dirt and it being hot and really hot. Lol And trying to find a drink.

OldDutch, I have those soft necks garlic in the fridge right now. Not sure if I needed to but it can be annoying trying to grow a confused allium.

Lol I know a lot of drivers here can contend for the Darwin Award.

Back when I was a city bus driver, I never argued with vehicles bigger than me for obvious reasons, and I never argued with those smaller than me either, since they had to be crazy to do so, and crazy drivers walk away all too often, leaving their victims in the other vehicle. Besides the bus driver sits up in the exposed glass nose, pretty much right out there in front of God and everybody. Not much protection from either larger or smaller vehicles!

All too often it isn't the crazy that we can afford to miss that chalk up the Darwin Awards, anyway. It is almost always someone doing something really stupid. I suppose we can afford to miss that kind of behavior too.

There was a DMV scandal here where workers were being paid off to pass people to get a drivers license. I wonder how many people are out there driving who shouldnt be. For a couple of years it was made easier for people to even pass the written test. It sure wasnt fair to me. If I got five wrong, I would have failed. I actually got a perfect score when I took the test. I've seen so many bad drivers illegal driving in just the last two weeks. I mean, who stops in the middle of a dark busy street to get out and argue with the person behind them at midnight? Darwin Award!

I ate some more of that softneck garlic chopped mixed in with some chopped elephant garlic and had garlic breath for a day and a half. I don't know if it was because of the mix but no matter how many times I brushed my teeth and used mouthwash, I would still have a hint of garlic haunting me.

I know we've gotten a little off track, but re: SoCal DMV scandals...

Many years ago, when I still lived in SoCal, my wife went in for the driving test in San Diego (it was her first license). The DMV test observer told her she had failed, but offered to pass her if she performed certain "favors" for him. She refused, and became so upset that the observer told her to just forget it, she had passed. When I reported the incident, DMV said they were aware of the behavior, it had happened before with other oriental women. Only when I threatened to bring the incident to the local media was any action taken to remove him.

Wow, thats disturbing to hear. There was a doctor here that was getting women hooked on drugs and doing the same.

We did kind of get a little off track. Lol I'm always interested in finding new varieties of garlic or onions to eat and grow but the farmers markets around here rarely have them. Maybe there aren't many garlic fans here to justify growing differnt varieties or it could be demographics. Oh, but when the sellers break out the fresh peanuts and multi colored corn the place breaks out into a mad house. People love their peanuts and odd corn.

Before GW's change of ownership, there were several posters here who grew many varieties of garlic. To my knowledge, based upon the scarcity of recent garlic posts, those large grower/collectors appear to have left the site. To Houzz's credit, they preserved most of GW's archives; those older "what are you growing this year" threads are worth looking for.

Thanks, LoneJack... if you've seen those other garlic growers on HG, you've probably seen me there as well. ;-) I sent Toomanyirons some stock last year, and received some from Martin. For the most part, though, the main focus of that board seems to be breeding.

Sadly, all the garden forums seem to be slowing down, we are losing such a huge amount of expertise. Some of that activity is shifting into social media, whether for good or ill only time will tell.

Yep I've seen you there as well ZM. Yeah they are seriously into breeding on HG and the threads on growing from TGS are really interesting. I would be a little intimidated to post there so I just lurk and read some of the archives. I don't do social media so I won't leave GW. I do appreciate you and the others that have remained on GW.

Nice group here IMO, too. Not so sure that I am comfortable at Homegrown Goodness.

BTW the organic Argentines are not all hardnecks, and those that are seem to be kind of a spindley sort. There are a couple of bulbs in the fridge, but if I get a nice stand from last fall's planting, I will have to think pretty hard before I plant anymore. It is just about time for another of our local cubs to put out another true hardneck that they have been bringing in every spring for some years now. Good eating that one is. Well worth waiting for.

"Nice group here IMO, too. Not so sure that I am comfortable at Homegrown Goodness."

Agreed. This has always been my favorite forum; folks are generous & friendly here.

OldDutch, I hope that your Argentine garlic is really a hard neck. SSE carries a variety named "Argentine" in their collection, and lists it as an artichoke.

I strongly suspect that the Argentine organics I found were very likely that artichoke. There seem to be more than one layer of cloves, and the closer I looked the smaller the minority of bulbs with hard necks became. I expect that by true spring I will have decided to eat what I bought...

I am waiting for the true hardneck to come into one of our supermarkets here shortly. I know the buyer for the supplier it came from who said it was called "Mexican Purple", which if I have my sources right is a generic term for Mexican grown Creoles as a group. Anyway those are big, colorful, flavorful bulbs. I've tried growing them a couple of times with very poor results, so I can believe the Creole part. They also seem to be the same every year but only show up seasonally.

I've seen pics of some Mexican Purple garlic that were grown in Baja. They are pretty but I've never seen them in real life or eaten them.

Ok did some double checking and I was thinking Baja Morado.

I'm thinking that Mexican Purple is more an industry tag than a real variety name. Whatever the case, what has been coming here has been pretty uniform from year to year and is very good tasting garlic, rich and full bodied but not excessively hot. When even I can tell the richness with my prescription drug dulled taste buds, the stuff must be pretty good.

Actually, I just saw some purple softneck garlc at the store today. They looked very attractive and tempting but had no label. They were kind of expensive so I passed on them. I know I'm going to be eyeing them again because I frequent that market.

I just went through the garlic listing in SSE's 2017 Yearbook. Most of the stock I presently grow came from other collectors there. Two of the varieties I lost in the 2012 aster yellows outbreak - Chrysalis Purple and Carpati - are now listed, so this will complete the restoration of my previous collection. Heritage Farm also had two other varieties that have been on my 'want' list for several years. Barring crop failures, they will all be shipped in the Fall.

The garlic bed is already about the largest that I can maintain, so to make room for the new arrivals, I will be eliminating a few of the varieties this Fall which have failed to size up. Best case scenario, they all do well... in which case, it will be a tough decision.

Several garlic collectors with large collections have dropped out of SSE in recent years, so SSE itself has been offering more varieties from its preservation collection to fill the gaps. This suits me fine, since I know garlic from their collection is free from some of the garlic pests & diseases (such as garlic bloat nematode) that might be present from other sources.