This medium-large Italian artichoke garlic is unusual in color, taste, size and storability. Lorz has more purple in the bulb wrappers than one usually sees in artichoke varieties, and the semi-thick wrappers peel easily away revealing large cream colored cloves with elongated tips and only the faintest hint of purple. Lorz Italian garlic averages 7-10 large fat cloves in the outer clove layer with cloves typically 1” wide and 1” deep. It is not unusual for cloves to be 1.5” wide! There are usually 2 clove layers with no small internal cloves with bulb sizes up to 3” in diameter. It harvests in mid-season and stores very well through the winter.
Most Italian garlic tends to be somewhat mild, but this one is different. Depending on growing conditions, it can be very hot and strong. At first it doesn’t seem to have any aftertaste at all, then in a few minutes the taste begins to grow and becomes very noticeable and builds to a peak in about thirty minutes. If you like garlic with a bold flavor that really sticks around, this is for you. In years where the taste is milder due to growing conditions, the aftertaste is still strongly present, even though the initial taste is milder. This is a real garlic lovers garlic.
One order comes with 2 large bulbs which when separated into cloves equates to about 6-8' of row.
Growing Garlic & Shallots:
WHEN TO PLANT: Garlic survives bitterly cold winters underground (or grows frost-hardy leaves where winters are mild to moderate), grows rapidly when the weather warms in spring, and bulbs in summer. In the North, plant 4-6 weeks before the ground freezes. This gives the plant time to make good root development but not enough time to make leaf growth. Where winters are milder, garlic is planted from October through January.
SOIL PREPARATION: Garlic needs fertile soil with lots of organic matter so the soil remains light through the long growing season. Adding lots of good compost will make the difference in how large your garlic bulbs are.
HOW TO PLANT: Break the bulb into individual cloves. Where winter is mild, plant cloves 1 inch deep, root side down; where winter is severe, put them 2-4 inches deep and mulch lightly, immediately after planting. In spring, the garlic will have no trouble pushing through an inch of mulch. Minimum spacing on raised beds is 4 inches. To grow the largest bulbs, try spacing your plants every 6 inches.
GROWING: After garlic has over wintered it must be kept well weeded. Garlic needs to be moderately fertilized as soon as it begins growing in spring with a good organic fertilizer for vegetables or a liquid fertilizer, sprayed every ten days to two weeks. Once bulbing begins in late spring, fertilizing is useless, maybe even harmful to getting the best quality bulbs. While the plant is rapidly growing, keep the soil most as you would for any other leafy green like lettuce or spinach.
HARVEST: Knowing the right time to harvest is very important. Dug too soon, the skins will not have formed around each clove. As the bulbs mature the outer leaves turn brown. This indicates that the papery shell is forming. When there are still 5-6 green leaves remaining on the plant, we dig and examine a plant every few days to check the bulb. In very good garlic ground (very fluffy soil) the plants might be pulled by hand, but it is usually better to loosen the soil first with a spading fork. Immediately brush off the soil from around the roots, but do this gently. Drying is the essential part of curing the bulbs so do not wash them in water. Immediately move the newly dug garlic out of direct sunlight .
