Best varieties of garlic you've grown in zone 9a

[Minanora]

Hehe, well I think tolerance is accumulated. First start with a teeny tiny piece now & then. You'll soon realize the part of your brain that says "Ahh, this is too hot!" is just a bit of unnecessary panic. When it settles on your tongue and the other flavors come through, and then the whole hotness fades to nothing, it's actually enjoyable. And it's so beneficial, with a gazillion enzymes and compounds. Some of which don't make it through cooking / processing. And ancient people used to chomp on raw garlic to preserve their teeth!
But I'm at the point where I can't taste Garlic at the levels others usually include in dishes. If I go too long without, I get such a strong craving as though my brain has identified it as an essential nutrient.

Funny though, I have zero Pepper tolerance. And I bet a lot of Pepper people can't take Garlic! Although, those with the ability to chomp strong Peppers and raw Garlic probably need to be in some kind of competition, lol.

I'm obsessed with garlic... It's something we eat every day. I love crushed garlic in my salads. That hot pop of sweet garlic is addicting.

I am trying Red Toch and Inchilium Red to see if they can hold a candle to the hardneck flavor.

You can grow hardneck if you chill it in the fridge and time it right. I grew one large head last year. I wasn't able to save it to grow more this year. I didn't realize what I had done until I saw the hard neck as I pulled the last cloves off for soup.

First bed there is garlic. The third one down by the fence has quite a bit of garlic in it as well, just all clumped together, they're little one year bobules. You can kinda see the biggest group by the yellow rake handle. Ignore the rest of the mess...

 

[WingItRanch]

I'm going to attempt Georgian Fire hardneck garlic here in East Texas (zone 9). It's supposed to be very flavorful and has a kick to it. First time growing garlic so fingers crossed!

The reason I went with this kind is because I got a ton of it for free. I think it works better in colder climates but I'll still give it a shot. I'll take any tips!

Update: it did not work. Too hot here in TX, I think. It never developed the scape and the tops just started wilting. Smells good but not successful.

 

[alwaystj9]

Chop them up & add to stew...sorry it didn't work.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Chop them up & add to stew...sorry it didn't work.

^^^ this.

Looks like my scallions, use them in all sorts of things.

 

[Minanora]

I'm getting close to harvest. There's some fat stalks in there. I'm very curious to see what did best.

 

[Minanora]

And the garlic is harvested!


What did best:
Inchilium Red
Had the largest heads, but did make two weird plants with little garlic heads growing from a leaf node on the tiny cloves that DS wanted to plant.

Runners up:
Red Toch
Did very well, large heads but not as large.

Early Italian
Lived up to it's name. Was first to harvest. Large heads for variety.

Last place
Silverwhite
Most didn't get as large, still a good harvest just not as impressive. Was last to be ready to pull, not as many cloves per head. This developed like the seed garlic I had for this variety, so it was expected. Just a little underwhelming.

The biggest inchilium

Early Italian

Other photos of harvest attached.

I will plant these varieties again.

 

[Minanora]

I finished trimming all of my garlic for storage a few weeks ago. I had left the early Italian and silverwhite on the curing racks way longer than I should have. The early Italian was fine. One single head was rotten.

The silverwhite, it has bulb mites. So about 2/3 of the harvest is bad. The silverwhite seed garlic I had, there were rotten cloves but I didn't inspect them for pests. Hindsight is 20/20. This year I will be sanitizing my garlic cloves before I plant.

I decided to double my garlic crop this year. Apparently more then double. I will plant my best garlic from this year and I also got more varieties to try.

Lorz, Sicilian, Nootka Rose, Susanville, and Kettle River.

I thought I was going to have around 200 plants in the ground this fall but it's looking more like 600. I'm very excited but also, why did I order so much garlic....

Three full beds of garlic. I'll actually have enough to share with family and friends at least. 180 wasn't enough.