French garlic collection for spring planting
French garlic
- Position: Full sun
- Soil: Moderately fertile, moist, well-drained soil
- Rate of growth: Average
- Hardiness: Fully hardy
A delicious and nutritious addition to the kitchen garden or allotment, this collection of tasty, French garlic bulbs can be used in a wide range of savoury recipes.
Each collection contains one head (or bulb) of each of the varieties listed below. Each head can be split up into approximately 12 cloves before planting.
- garlic 'Edenrose': A pretty and pink hardneck variety (a single row of fewer and larger cloves wrapped together in a papery sheath to form the “head” or bulb of garlic) with a sweet and subtle flavour.
- garlic 'Flavor': A white-skinned softneck variety bulb containing smaller and larger numbers (9-16) of pretty pink cloves that will store for a long time once ripened.
- garlic 'Cristo': A continental variety which produces plump, white-skinned cloves that have a delicious, strong flavour and a light aroma. It can be planted in autumn or spring for harvesting the bumper crops in summer. Not just useful for adding flavour to food, garlic is also well known as a companion plant as it acts as a powerful insect repellant. Try dotting it around your more precious plants and marvel at the results!
Plant the cloves (pointy side up) 2cm deep from September to December (if frost permits) at 15cm intervals. Subsequent rows should be spaced at 30cm intervals. Gently lift when the leaves start to yellow, and leave them on the surface of the soil (or in a bright shed) to ripen before storing them in a light, airy position, which is dry and frost free. There are not many varieties that show resistance to rust, but one way round this is to plant your garlic early, so that by May when rust is usually getting busy the garlic is well developed.
- Pets: TOXIC if eaten; Humans: Skin irritant/allergen