Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Why is some garlic labeled Eating Garlic- Not For Planting?

Normally you can plant cloves of any garlic we sell to grow your own garlic. This year (and last year) we have found a few diseased bulbs in one of our garlic plots (White Rot, a disease mainly affecting garlic and onions). Although the diseased bulbs have been thrown out, there is a chance that a few spores could be on the roots of the garlic we are selling. These spores could infect your garden eventually (affecting only garlic, onions and other alliums). This doesn’t affect the quality, flavor, health benefits or storage life of the garlic we are selling.

Just to be safe- we recommend that you don’t plant garlic from this area into your garden, especially if you grow on a large scale, or plan to sell your garlic. We will sell seed garlic later from our clean plot (no sign of disease this year) to plant for growing.

We are working on trying to eliminate the white rot using organic methods, and have started a new, clean field where we will plant garlic from a disease free farm.

Planting garlic (also called "seed" garlic) will be sold a little later and be labeled as such. It is always best to use the bigger cloves from the large size bulbs for planting. Your bulbs will be much larger if you start your garlic this way. Planting is best done from October 10-Nov. 15th.