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Garlic Pages Frequently Asked Questions What is the origin of this collection? The garlic displayed on these pages represents a duplicate growout by Jeff Nekola and Linda Fey of the entire holdings of the Seed Savers Exchange in Decorah, Iowa. The SSE began developing this collection in the early 1990’s, with accessions occurring up to the present. Most material was donated by John Swenson and Ron Engeland in the early-mid 1990s, and by Darrell Merrill in 2000. An additional 30 varieties were sent to us from Decorah in October of 2007, and will be photographed, evaluated, and included in these pages following the 2008 harvest.
Linda Fey admiring recently planted garlic in November, 2005 How did you determine the history of each variety? For each variety we searched through all volumes of the Seed Savers Yearbook, and determined for each the year of first listing. From this, we searched forward through the Yearbooks, sifting out the relevent historical information from all subsequent entries. In most cases, however, the most relevent information was reported within a two-three years of first listing. We also kept track of all relevent USDA and Gatersleben accession numbers that were reported in the Yearbook entries, and then sought additional information by seaching for these accessions online. Additionally, some historical information was gathered from Filaree Farm catelogs, and from other sources such as the writings of Chester Aaron. What does Variety mean? Garlic (Allium sativum) is often scientifically classified into one of two varieties: var. sativum (softnecks) and var. ophioscordon (hardnecks). Within the last decade, a refinement on this coarse-scale system has been popularized by Ron Engeland and the folks at Filaree Farm. The Engeland system sorts garlics into one of eight main groups (Artichoke, Asiatic, Creole, Porcelain, Purple Stripe, Rocambole, Silverskin, and Turban) based on bulb and clove appearance and plant growth form. Additionally, the Purple Stripe group is split into three subgroups (Purple Stripe, Mottled, and Glazed). More information regarding these groupings may be found at the Filaree Farm website. We have found that while some varieties may be easily assigned into groups, others defy categorization. While we have done our best to assign each of these to a group, we anticipate that other growers may sort them differently by putting more emphasis on some traits (e.g. clove and wrapper color) than others (e.g. general bulb morphology, plant growth form). What do the Harvest Dates mean? Garlic will mature at different times in different years and in different climates. As such, a single harvest time for each variety is impossible. What we have done is to break the total garlic harvest into five different windows: Very Early (more than two weeks before the Middle window); Early (one to two weeks before the Middle window); Middle (the central two weeks of the harvest season); Late (one to two weeks after the Middle window); and Very Late (more than two weeks after the Middle window). The harvest dates exhibited on these pages represent the harvest windows in which each variety was dug during the 2006 season in Albuquerque, and were: Very Early – before June 15; Early – June 15 to June 30; Middle – July 1 to July 14; Late – July 15 to July 30; Very Late – later than July 30. The 2007 harvest was so compressed that essentially all of the non-Turban garlics became ready within the last week of June and first week of July. Because of this, we have only reported the 2006 harvest dates, but will continue to keep track of these patterns. What do the numeric codes represent? The prefix ‘SSE’ represents the Seeds Savers accession number of that particular variety. A number of varieties are also held in other seed banks, including the USDA garlic facility at Pullman, Washington (prefix codes of either ‘PI’ or ‘W6’) or the Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research (IPK) at Gatersleben in Germany (prefix codes of either 'ALL' or 'K'). Why have the Gatersleben links been turned off? Sometime in late 2007 the ability for web-searching of the Gatersleben asscession database was terminated. While it is possible to verify that the collection number for a given variety exists within their database, no collection information beyond country of origin is available. As such there was not much point in keeping this link turned on. If Gatersleben at some point in the future will again permit on-line retrieval of collection data, we'll turn the links back on again. What does "2006 Picture" mean? The initial material we obtained from SSE in fall of 2005 was very small and needed significant sizing up. The initial pictures which were found on this site through 2007 are images of those first-season results. However, we had an outstanding success in the 2007 growing season, with average head size more than doubled! As a result, we completely re-shot the entire collection to allow you to see what well grown examples of these varieties look like. For those who are interested in how much these changed over the course of the growning season, I've also linked to the images of the 2006 crop. The lighting in the area at Chispas where we did the photography changed over the two years, leading to a redder-average cast to the 2006 pictures. How did you calculate average bulb size? We weighed all heads from a given variety about 4 weeks following cleaning, and then simply divided the number of heads into that total. Why do my garlic plants of the same name look different from those that are pictured? There are two principle reasons for this. Most likely, subtle differences (for instance wrapper colors, clove colors, size) are due to differences in climate and soils from Albuquerque. We have extensive experience growing many of these varieties in the Midwestern USA, and have found that many (especially artichoke varieties) were less highly colored when grown there. The other reason is that names and plant material may have been inadvertently switched at some point in the past, either by the original growers of that variety or by Seed Savers Exchange. Such honest mistakes are bound to happen, given the over 200 varieties that have been maintained for almost two decades. If you are convinced that a variety we are showing has been attached to the wrong name, please inform either Jeff (email link at left), or Matt Barthel at Seed Savers Exchange. Why do some garlic varieties have more than one name? Sometimes names were intially spelled incorrectly in Seed Savers Yearbooks, and we have kept track of these often multiple spellings that have been used over the years. Also, commercial seed companies sometimes rename varieties in the hope of garnering greater sales. While this may make economic sense, it plays havoc with the utility of names, as the original often reflected variety's place of origin. For instance, the name 'Samarkand Purple' is much more appropriate than 'Persian Star' as the variety was actually collected by John Swenson in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, and has nothing to do with Iran. For this reason, we have chosen to arrange varieties by the names they have been assigned in their respective seed banks. We have provided synonyms next to the main variety name, and have included some of these synonyms as well in the garlic name list. Where is the garlic grown? We grow out our garlic at Chispas Farm in the south valley of the Rio Grande at Albuquerque, New Mexico. Chispas Farms is certified organic by the state of New Mexico, and run by Eli Burg, Amanda Mione, and Matt Jackson. The soils are clay-loams associated with the Rio Grande floodplain, and are principally irrigated from the adjacent acequia. Calcium levels are very high, leading to some immobilization of Iron and other nutrients. The climate is listed as USDA Zone 6a, with minimum temperatures of around -5 degrees F. Garlic growth is often initiated by early February.
Mulched garlic in December, 2005 at Chispas Farm
Garlic and Chispas Farm in February, 2006 with the Sandia Mountains in the distance
Eli Burg during harvest in July, 2006
Chispas drying shed in July, 2007
Jeff Nekola with the Turban Garlic harvest in May 2007
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