Garlic: Add a Little Spice to the Garden

Garlic

Hardneck Garlic

Although in this blog I have focused on flowers since the beginning, every now and then I venture into something different, like solar cooking, or birds, or chile peppers, and other such things.

This year in the vegetable garden I am growing tomatoes, jalapeno peppers, okra, and oregano.

On a recent trip to Tucson I visited the Tucson Botanical Gardens, a wonderful place I can recommend to anyone planning a visit to Tucson. There are a variety of different “gardens” on the grounds, and I enjoyed each one. I took a lot of photographs of many different things.

But, the one thing that really captured my eye was the garlic growing in the Herb Garden. Garlic grows well in the Albuquerque area, and at one time I grew it. That was some time ago, though, and before I began photographing on a daily basis. This was a fun photographic subject. I want to grow it again.

But, this leads to something of a conundrum. What is shown in this image is a hardneck variety, that is, one that produces a flower stalk at the top of the plant. It is a fun one to photograph! The problem is that if these “scapes” are allowed to develop, the bulb below will become somewhat stunted. Softneck varieties usually do not form these, and are considered easier to grow. But, photographically, they are not as interesting.

I plan to plant some type in the fall. It appears that the only solution to the conundrum is to plant both types!