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Garlic Diversity and Where to Find It
There are hundreds of different varieties of garlic, which is amazing when you consider that virtually none of them are new. Efforts to breed new garlic varieties have mostly failed due to the fact that it is very difficult to save true seeds from a garlic plant. That means basically all the garlic you can find are heritage varieties from around the world, hundreds or perhaps even thousands of years old, harvested and re-planted by gardeners year after year.
When you break a garlic bulb into cloves (the individual wedges in the bulb) and plant the cloves separately, each one grows into a full bulb by the next summer, and each of those bulbs is identical to the original bulb. You aren't making new garlic plants at all - you're dividing one plant into six, eight, fifteen or more pieces that each grow back to a full plant again. Every clove makes a clone.
Fall is the time to plant garlic, so if you want to grow some for yourself, now is the time to get some quality planting stock.
We've indexed all the garlic catalogues in Canada that we know of, and we found 188 varieties of garlic for sale!
If you want certified organic, 141 of them are organic!
Check our Seed Finder and choose Garlic from the top dropdown list. Don't forget to click Certified Organic when you search, and you can even filter the list by region to locate varieties that are suitable to your part of the country.
You can see the same information in one big list at our Canadian Seed Catalogue Index.
A big thank you to Diane Whitehead for her wonderful help assembling this information from seed companies all across Canada!
Why does garlic diversity matter?
Although there are differences between varieties, every experienced garlic grower knows that weather, soil, and location make much more of a difference in the size, appearance, and even the flavour of a garlic variety. In other words, you'll get very different results from one year to the next, even with the same garlic. But you can choose a variety that will be more reliable in your particular place, latitude, soil, and method of gardening.
Choice is what makes garlic growing interesting, and it's also what makes it possible for us to grow our favourite bulb successfully in so many different climate regions. It was not very long ago that gardeners believed you couldn't grow garlic in colder areas of Canada. But varieties from colder parts of the world (think Siberia) changed that belief.
Gardeners also used to say that certain varieties were the best of all, but when those turned out to be less reliable than others in wetter, dryer, colder, sandier, or windier places, gardeners and farmers were grateful for diverse garlics that gave them more choices.
Which one is best for you?
That is so hard to say. Every garlic has different qualities, whether its size, flavour, storage life, or winter hardiness, and every person has different preferences. More than that, every garlic grows a little differently each year than the last, so it takes a long time to make meaningful comparisons between varieties. Lots of people are working on it - growing different varieties and reporting which they liked best.
Check our Seed Finder and our Member Seed Exchange for varieties that grew well near you. Those will likely grow well where you are.
The best way? Buy garlic from a local grower, and ask them what they'd recommend for planting. There isn't much of a difference between "eating garlic" and "seed garlic" so you can plant any good locally-grown garlic and get great results.
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An annual membership to Seeds of Diversity gives you access to our seed exchange, seed grow-out programs, and our online news.
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