5,000 years of cultivating garlic, from Kyrgyzstan to Damascus, Pennsylvania

Garlic, Allium sativum, is a member of the onion family that includes shallots, scallions, leeks, chives and, of course, onions.

Next year’s garlic crop will be cloned from what I harvested this past July. Each bulb of my garlic contains four to six plump cloves. Thus, to sow slightly more than 1,000 garlic plants, I took several hundred bulbs, also referred to as knobs or heads, breaking them apart into individual cloves. Only the larger, healthier cloves are replanted to ensure these qualities in next year’s harvest.

I’ve been growing a variety of garlic called German Hardneck, also called German White, for ten years now. Each year, I am told, it learns to adopt to my climate and growing conditions in Damascus, Pennsylvania. This is called “biological elasticity,” the ability to acclimate to local conditions over time.

On October 12th, a first frost warning was announced for my area. I am in USDA Plant Hardiness Zone 5b. This is the time to plant. This garlic, often with “extra-hardy” tagged onto its name, will establish itself in these colder fall days sending roots into the ground and soon, a small green shoot poking up. Timing is important to allow the garlic to establish itself before the temperatures sink too low but not too early, to prevent premature top growth.

Garlic is one of the oldest cultivated crops dating back some 5,000 years. It originated in Central Asia and still grows wild in a number of the “stans:” Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Today, garlic is a culinary staple of so many cultures around the world providing a pungent flavor when raw and turning mild when cooked. It was not part of my family’s culinary tradition but now, on a daily basis, I am in my kitchen adding garlic to soups, pestos, salad dressings, pasta and grain salads.

Many are devoted to garlic for its many medicinal properties derived primarily from its sulfur compounds. There are a long list of professed benefits including boosting the immune system, preventing the common cold, lowering cholesterol and preventing heart disease. My daily consumption of garlic aids in my preference to avoid doctors and hospitals.

I harvest my garlic at the end of July and allow it to cure in my old chicken coop, well ventilated due to missing windows & doors, atop frames of chicken wire. German Hardneck will store well for six months, even longer. Although past its prime, I continue to use until the following spring and by then the scapes — the flower stalks — emerge. These scapes can be harvested for that same pungent garlic flavor.

If you buy your garlic in the supermarket, chances are it is a softneck variety that came from China. It is a poor substitute once you have grown accustomed to good quality hardneck garlic, home-grown or from the farmer’s market.

My first year on the farm, I planted several varieties in addition to the German Hardneck, purchased at the nearby Callicoon Farmer’s Market. They produced smaller bulbs and smaller cloves. And there were other problems. So the German became my exclusive garlic crop. Other farmers in northeast Pennsylvania agree that this is the best, most reliable variety for our area.