Hardneck Garlic

 A few years ago I had a grocery store garlic start growing, so for fun I planted it in a vegetable bed near the Welsh onions.  It did well, and has made a little garlic patch I thin out once in a while and move to other beds.  Remember though, some vegetables don't do well growing near alliums, so I can't plant green beans in the same bed with the garlic and onions. 

When they were younger they didn't bloom, but this was a good bloom year for them.  Since they did bloom I know that my garlic is hardneck. Garlic comes in two types, hardneck and softneck.  Only the hardneck flowers on scapes, or flower stems. Softneck grows scapes, but no flowers. 

Rather than seed, the flowers form bulbils, tiny little garlics!   While garlic can form seeds, they won't usually germinate as the reproductive parts of garlic are only partially formed.   The bulbils are clones of the parent plant. 

I also pulled some to dry. 

Dry and cleaned up for cooking or planting.

Ready to add to a chicken marinade!   Do you chop your garlic?  I mash it with the back of a fork, it turns into a lovely garlic paste then.

I had no idea that garlic didn't form seeds, or that the flowers grew into tiny little garlic bulbs until mine did!  Garlic was always one of those things that was just around.   Apparently softneck garlic is commonly sold in grocery stores due to its longer shelf-life and 

braid-ability."  Obviously, my store sold hardneck!