Black Garlic
I found this in the grocery and thought it was intriquing.


Black garlic is sweet and savory, looks like a black truffle, a soft, jelly-like texture with a melt-in-your-mouth consistency very much like a soft dried fruit or fudge. It's flavour has been compared to molasses, candy, coffee, balsamic vinegar, licorice, dark soy sauce, cheese, wine and even french onion soup. If you could for a moment, imagine your garlic without the bad breath, pungent odour, acrid bite. No, well like anything that gets better with age that's what we have here.

Black garlic is a fermented garlic used as a food ingredient in Asian cuisine. It is made by fermenting whole bulbs of garlic at high temperature, a process that results in black cloves. The taste is sweet and syrupy with hints of balsamic or even tamarind. It is unrelated to a genetically unique six-clove garlic also called black garlic and used in countries such as Korea, or with the ornamental plant Allium nigrum.

Black garlic has a long history in cuisine of Korea and Thailand. Prized for it's rich antioxidants and added to energy drinks, and in Thailand claimed to increase the user's longevity. One interesting use is in the making of black garlic chocolate.

Introduced in 2008 by Le Sanctuaire, San Fransisco they began selling their own black garlic . The New York Times author, Merrill Stubbs, wrote an article in the Spring 2008 "Design and Living" section as a "new staple" in modern cuisine. Stubbs noted that chef Bruce Hill of Bix Restaurant also in San Francisco was using Black Garlic. In his search for a supplier Hill discovered entrepreneur Scott Kim, who had started importing garlic from Jeju Island, Korea in 2005 and was processing them in the US. Kim ferments the garlic for a month, at high temperatures, and sells them online. Black Garlic just grew from there. Matthias Merges, executive chef at Charlie Trotter's of Chicago, listed black garlic as one of his top five food finds in Restaurant News, December 2008.

In Taoism mythology, black garlic was rumored to grant immortality. Black garlic is great for your health—loaded with nearly twice as many antioxidants as raw garlic. It contains S-Allycysteine, which means its a natural compound that has been proven to be a factor in cancer prevention.

High Temperature:
Actual: 6°C partly sunny Wind E17km/h P.O.P.11%
Average: 3°C
Record: 15°C in 1977

Low Temperature:
Actual: -1°C cloudy Wind E19km/h P.O.P.8%
Average: -6°C
Record: -19°C in 1984

The garlic bed in Block B is looking great and we should be able to pick the crop closer to the end of August or early September weather permitting. August is perfect for harvesting garlic UNLESS it is a very wet year. The texture of the paper surrounding the bulbs is the perfect indicator for plaiting. (from a guy who used to grow garlic commercially)
Everything I've read is very conflicting... leaves should be fully green. No wait yellow...no brown: so which one do we follow?? Well its possible they are all right. It depends on what you want your garlic to look like. If you wait until all the leaves are brown you should get a larger bulb, but, risk the bulb splitting apart into individual cloves. If you havest when the leaves are fully green you can ensure long term storage with a well wrapped bulb through the fall and winter.
The best way is to dig up a bulb and take a look. If it looks good its time to harvest the rest of the crop.


‘Music’is a hardneck variety, Canadian introduction that is easy to peel and chop and has a vibrant aroma and flavour.

When looking up garlic types you see hard and soft neck garlic. What's the difference??
Although all true garlic is species Allium sativum, we also have two subspecies – hard-neck ophioscorodon, and soft-neck sativum garlics. Hard-necks were the original garlics, and soft-necks were cultivated over centuries. Hard-necks send up a number of bubils that resemble a flower and should be removed, they yield larger and tastier cloves. Soft-necks have a longer storage life, are easier to grow and produce more than hard-necks. Most commercial varieties are soft-necks.


High Temperature:
Actual: 19°C mostly sunny Wind NW19km/h P.O.P.0%
Average: 27°C
Record: 37°C in 1995

Low Temperature:
Actual: 6°C partly clear Wind NW12km/h P.O.P.0%
Average: 15°C
Record: 8°C in 1950