Zambia Agribusiness Society

The post today is on a crop with a long and tortuous path, and one that isn’t finished not by a long shot. Garlic is such an amazing plant with a multitude of uses that I was excited when I first tried growing it. The excitement was short lived however as when the plants were dug as their tops died down. I found bulbs that were not substantially bigger than the ones I had planted. This was in my old intensive style garden that relied on truckloads of mushroom compost and regular irrigation. When facing a failure like this there are a lot of different ways to respond. One option I have become fonder of as I get older is to simply give up on that particular plant and focus my energy on something that is more sincerely rewarding. The opposite extreme is to throw everything and the kitchen sink at the problem, hoping that if you just add enough of the right ingredient or work hard enough at the right technique then the problem can be solved. With biological systems there are a multitud...

Garlic is one of the easiest and most satisfying crops for home vegetable gardeners to grow. It yields two useful crops; the garlic bulbs themselves, and delicious green “scapes” a month earlier. Because it is usually planted in the fall and begins to grow early in the spring, garlic provides the garden with something green and encouraging, long before other crops have germinated. About garlic Freshly harvested garlic, ready for curing. Garlic ( Allium sativa ) is a member of the onion family. Garlic varieties are classified into softneck and hardneck (also known as topset) varieties. Hardneck varieties produce a false flower stalk called a scape, and generally produce fewer, larger cloves than softneck varieties. As a general rule, hardneck varieties are hardier and better able to withstand our cold winters than softneck varieties. Softneck varieties are required if you plan to braid your garlic. Starting materials Garlic doesn’t produce flowers or seeds. The individual cloves...