“Lazy garlic” – what will they think of next? Lidl is selling garlic heads, each about half the size of normal, but consisting of just one clove. What’s the point of that? “Very easy to peel and can therefore be prepared much more quickly,” says a spokesperson for the chain. The garlic is “uniquely fragrant”. Sampling some, I thought it not very different from ordinary garlic. But it has more ka-boom than the feeble elephant garlic you see sometimes on the veg counter. It’s big and easily peeled but it is in fact a type of leek posing, rather pathetically, as a garlic. Lidl’s solo or pearl garlic is the […]

Each plants sends up a scape, which would contain its flower and then seeds if I didn’t cut it off,” Barbara continued. “German White has large cloves, about eight around a central stem. They are easy to peel and have excellent flavor. You can tell how many cloves each plant will produce by counting the number of leaves the plant has during its growing cycle. Each leaf equals one clove—roughly.” Barbara planted this year’s crop last November 1. “The University of Maryland Extension’s ‘Planting Dates’ guide for Central Maryland recommends planting garlic from October 15 to November 15, so I planted at the mid-point.” Some growers plant in the spring, […]