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2010 was the first year that I grew Georgian Fire garlic and I was impressed with the flavor & the size of the bulbs as well as the size of the individual cloves. They are great for cooking with because don’t have to struggle trying to take the skin off of tiny little cloves that you get with many different types of garlic.
Georgian Fire garlic comes from the Republic of Georgia (as in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia…not the state of Georgia) and it is a porcelain garlic which means it is not only one of the healthier garlics, it is also one that stores pretty well into the spring. In fact, we had garlic from our 2010 summer harvest all the way into May 2011 before we had to purchase garlic from the store while we waited for the 2011 harvest.
My success last year made me too complacent this year and I failed to get out in the spring and give the garlic a good helping of organic fertilizer…and I paid for that complacency with smaller bulbs this season than what I harvest last season — live and learn. I did however get plenty of garlic scrapes, which are the flower spikes that you cut off the plant so the garlic will put more energy into developing the bulb than in developing seeds. Then you can use the scrapes in stir frys or even chop them up and use them to spice burgers you put on the grill.
I planted 42 cloves in November of 2010 and in June 2011 I harvested the crop, hung it to dry in the garden shed for 3 weeks and ended up with 5.75 lbs. The interesting thing about porcelain garlic is that you won’t find them as often at the store or farmers market because they have larger and fewer cloves, which means that growers have to save more of the harvest for next year’s seed. It also means that porcelain garlic tends to command higher prices.
