Elephant Garlic.

[snooky]

I was given six cloves of Elephant Garlic this spring and planted them in a manure rich soil.One threw a"flower spike" which I cut off and it split into four cloves.
The other five grew just leaves and did not split but grew to golf ball size and are just as solid!!
The question is:-if I plant the golf ball size cloves this autumn will they split?
I"m going to try with a couple of them and await the results.
Regards
snooky

[sally wright]

Dear Snooky,
yes they will and you will get some whoppers, all being well. To increase the size still further behead the flower spike.
Regards Sally Wright.

[snooky]

Thanks Sally for the info, they will be in the ground in a couple of weeks time.
Regards snooky

[snooky]

Evening Sally,
You were "Wright".Lifted my garlic yesterday and the Elephant Garlic bulbs are ginormous Some of them are fifteen inches in circumference.Happy

[Colin_M]

Some of them are fifteen inches in circumference.Happy

Gosh
Any chance you could take a picture - let us know if you want any help getting onto the forum. I'd really like to see a garlic bulb that's bigger than some of my squash!

[Marken]

Have you tried eating them yet? Do they taste the same as ordinary garlic?

[Chantal]

I know I'm just showing off now, but I am so pleased with my garlic crop this year (for the first time in over 10 years of trying to grow the stuff).

The elephant garlic are massive, with a circumference between 28 and 31cm

The normal garlic was grown from some bulbs brought back from France last year and the elephant garlic came from the Garlic Farm on the Isle of Wight.

[peter]

Have you tried eating them yet? Do they taste the same as ordinary garlic?

They are much milder.

From memory the plant is supposed to be more closely related to Leeks than Garlic?

[FelixLeiter]

They are much milder.
From memory the plant is supposed to be more closely related to Leeks than Garlic?

They are indeed much milder. Elephant garlic is a true garlic, a polyploid, to be precise, so like so many of its type it's a pumped-up version of its forebears.

[Johnboy]

Hi Felix,
How many chromosomes does Elephant Garlic have? Why do you say that Elephant Garlic is a true Garlic? It has been accepted for quite a number of years that Elephant Garlic is nearer the Leek rather than the Garlic and I am most interested to know where you gathered your information.
JB.

[alan refail]

Hi Johnboy and Felix

If a garlic ignoramus may put in his two pennorth.

I know that Elephant garlic is Allium ampeloprasum [wild leek] and Garlic is Allim sativum [garlic] - so it is clearly wrong to say that the former is a "true garlic".

There is some useful comment HERE - if you scroll down almost to the bottom of the page, he says:

As you may know, elephant garlic is not a true garlic; it a leek.Many people think of it as garlic so we grow it. It was not easy for me to admit that elephant garlic is not true garlic because it looks and acts so much like garlic and was the very first garlic we grew.When I bought Ron Engeland's book, "Growing Great Garlic", and he described it as a leek, rather than a garlic, I was almost offended and set out to find out for myself whether he was right or not. I taste tested all 10 of those first strains I bought from him and when I finally taste tested the elephant garlic, I suspected instantly that he was right.The following year I bought 25 more strains and taste tested them and I knew for certain that he was right. Taste alone will tell the educated palate that it is not a true garlic, one need not be a botanist. All garlic species are botanically classified as Allium Sativum and elephant garlic is Allium Ampeloprasum, formerly Allium Gigantum.

Large elephant garlic is about twice the size of the largest real garlics or larger and has a milder taste but with a sharp onion-like edge to it and a distinctive aftertaste. They average five monstrously large cloves that are somewhat yellowish compared the milky whiteness of true garlic cloves. It also has far less allicin potential than real garlic but grows extremely clean and disease free and does not seem to be bothered by insects. In our experience, it stores very hard and clean much longer than real garlic (even when separated into individual cloves, it will store about a year at room temp).

Unlike real garlic it produces bottom bulbils called corms that have very hard shells with sharp pointed tops and they store even longer than the bulbs. The corms are attached to the bottoms of the bulbs but grow up their sides and are often incorporated into the bulb wrappers several layers deep. The bulb wrappers on elephant garlic are extremely white and they cure out to be very thin and flaky and are intact only on freshly harvested bulbs. After a few months they seem to evaporate, leaving bare or almost bare bulbs that have a rather rough look but it does not seem to affect their storability much, only their attractiveness.


Also useful information from the NVS

[FelixLeiter]

I am most interested to know where you gathered your information.

Some bloke down the pub told me.

[FelixLeiter]

There is some useful comment HERE

I stand corrected. I looked it up in Onions and Other Vegetable Alliums, J L Brewster (CAB International 1994) to confirm. It has 48 chromosomes, as opposed to leeks' 32. I remembered the polyploidy bit, but I was off target with the species.