I realize I'm chiming in on this topic late but...there are definately many different tastes in garlic and different kinds that are good for different uses, like raw, cooked, powdered, storage, etc... I just spent the last summer studying garlic, how to grow it, medicinal qualities, types, and I am amazed at garlic! We planted a few hundred heads and are looking forward to our crop next year. Did you know that about 75% of the garlic in the US now comes from China?!?!? We are their biggest customer. Chinese garlic is known as "elephant garlic" or "white garlic" or "common garlic". One would never realize it but it's used in many many spices and flavorings in processed and restaurant food. The growing conditions of Chinese garlic are supposed to be up to US standards but in reality unknown, however the US requires it to be irradiated to be imported to the US. This is supposed to kill bacteria and other pathogens which is laughable because garlic is by it's very nature has antibiotic like qualities. Garlic is an interesting thing because it's actually (for lack of a better word) alive. When you crush it and let it sit for about 15 minutes the enzymes mix and it becomes (again for lack of a better word) activated or more potent. It's these properties that give it taste and health qualities. Irradiation kills these properties of the garlic leaving it dead and lacking health benefits. Irradiated garlic will not grow or will grow poorly. Currently there are no hybrid garlics or genetically modified garlics but big business is busy trying to accomplish this. I'm sure you could guess who. They are having trouble because of the "alive" property I mentioned earlier. Garlic is used in huge amounts in the US, mostly in the commercial spice industry where they use it in processed foods and restaurant food. We eat lots of tasty things that we'd never guess has garlic in it. The Chinese have killed US garlic growers because they just cannot compete. The numbers have dwindled and dwindled for decades. It's a very labor intensive crop and in the garlic industry US companies pay fair wages, overtime, provide insurance, workman's comp, pay government taxes, etc... whereas in China they pay don't pay these things not to mention the long hours and pitiful low wages they pay their laborers. Even with the expense of irradiation and shipping it halfway around the globe it's far cheaper than what the US can produce. I am just one person but I make sure I buy US garlic for this reason. Anyway, it's great that you'll try to plant some common garlic, and I hope you will consider some other varieties too. There's a big garlic world out there and many to choose from. Crushing(not cutting/slicing/mincing)and waiting about 10 - 15 minutes brings out a full flavor and "power". If you don't like the smell of garlic on your fingers from prep, just rub them on a steel surface under water until the smell goes away. Works with onions too. As far as medicinal uses, non irradiated garlic is currently being used all over the world to sucessfully ward off H1N1, the common cold, other bacterial and viral infections, heal cuts and wounds, treat stuffy sinuses, to treat cancer, as an anti fungal, I could go on and on. I'm certainly not saying it's a cure all, I'm not recommending it for any specific use, I'm saying it's a very interesting plant with an unusual way of attacking foreign invaders in the body and that there are some folks that claim to have success with it. I've read many of the garlic bulb sites on the web and spoken with many of the companies. By far my favorite is Gourmet Garlic Gardens, I've added the link below if you're interested. They have fabulous varieties to choose from and will gladly help you if you have any questions on what variety is best for your needs and area. There's a lot to read on this site! There are many other bulb sources who are great out there as well, this just happens to be my favorite. G.O. Here is a link that might be useful: Gourmet Garlic Gardens

Melissia, There are different ways to do it. Some people, for example, wash it after harvest and others only brush off the dirt with their hands. Some trim back the greens and roots fairly soon after harvest and others don't. Some trim them a lot and some trim them a little and others don't trim them much at all. Some hang it to dry while others spread it out on screens or wire racks, or even on tabletops covered with several layers of newspaper (to absorb any moisture so it doesn't become trapped between the bulb and the table). I think that what you do to cure your garlic often is determined by your soil and by how wet or how dry your garlic is when harvested. Ideally, you would withhold water that last couple of weeks to the garlic can dry down some on its own right before you harvest it, but in some parts of Oklahoma that have heavy May and June rains, that is not always possible. When I harvest garlic, I usually brush off the dirt by hand if it is dry. If it is fairly moist, I let it dry for a day and brush off the dirt that has dried. If there still is a lot of dirt, I brush it off every day. My father taught me to never wash onions, garlic or potatoes with water after harvesting them because he felt it lengthened their curing time and shortened their storage time. (When I was a little kid, I couldn't understand why he stored "dirty potatoes" no matter how many times he told me. I just wanted to wash them!) Thus, I hate to use water because the wrappers get wet and sometimes shrivel or even can mildew if there is high humidity. Sometimes I use a little vegetable scrub brush from my kitchen to gently brush off stubborn dirt. I normally cure mine by laying them on wire racks in 100% shade---you don't want direct sun or dew/rainfall on it after it is harvested. The amount of time I cure it varies depending on how wet or dry the garlic was when harvested and also depending on how humid the air is. This year, it's been REALLY humid, so the curing time will be longer rather than shorter. It can vary from a week or two if the garlic and the air are really pretty dry to start out with or three weeks or more if the garlic and soil were pretty wet and the air remains humid. In really wet years, I have cured it endlessly...probably 4 to 6 weeks....because it had a high water content when harvested and high humidity remained in the air constantly. To store it, you want to keep it in moderate humidity out of direct sunlight and at moderate temperatures. Some years I have stored it on wire shelves in my pantry. My pantry is dark and cool as it sits under an interior stairway in the very center of the house. Other years, I have stored it tied in bundles and hanging from storage shelves in my tornado shelter, which doubles as a root cellar. It has really cool temperatures, decent humidity and is dark and dry so it is an ideal place to store garlic, onions, potatoes and they last forever when stored in there. The daytime highs in the summer still stay mostly in the 70s in the tornado shelter, so it is a great storage space. If you don't have room for a lot of garlic in your pantry, anywhere in the house that the temperature and humidity stay at a fairly constant level is good. In my house, the floor of an upstairs storage closet works well for interior storage too because it is in the very center of the house so its temperature/humidity stay fairly constant. You can store it in net bags, in doubled brown paper bags, in bundles tied or braided togther and hanging from a shelf, or in a terra cotta storage crock or flower pot covered with a lid. When I move it from curing to storage, I do clip off much of the roots, but I leave a somewhat longer stem on it than you'll find with grocery storage garlic...maybe an inch or two. Remember to save enough to replant in the fall, or you can replant small cloves right after you harvest. I do that pretty often. The stuff I replant won't do much right after it is replanted, but it keeps me from 'forgetting' to plant garlic in fall because I'm too busy harvesting and putting up other crops. People who have high soil moisture level might not have success with replanting right after harvest, but it has worked for me every time I've done it. Properly cured garlic that is stored at medium humidity and moderate interior temperatures (not wildly varying temps like you'd have in a garage, barn or shed in OK in the summer) will last for months and months. I find it lasts a lot longer without sprouting than most grocery store garlic. You can grow whatever you want in the area where you had garlic, harvest it and then replant garlic there in the autumn. I usually put fall tomatoes in that spot and then plant garlic there after they have been removed. I like to add compost to the spot before the garlic goes back in, especially since I have clay soil and drainage is always an issue. Dawn

From way back when daddy had the farm he grew garlic so we had lots of garlic, they started freezing some of it, and I do the same today. I freeze both the entire garlic head or the peeled cloves I buy in a big jar. I find it keeps very well and is very easy to use. I use garlic mostly in cooking so it comes right out of the freezer into the food to be cooked. If I need to chop or grate it that is not a problem either. I have not noticed that it makes it any less garlicky and I have never had any get mushy or change texture. There are lots of methods of freezing but I just put it in a freezer safe container and put it in the door shelf of my freezer have been doing that for ever since I picked it up from mom and dad. Dad would also store some in burlap sacks hung up in the garage but they will eventually rot or shrivel up. No chance of that in the freezer. When frozen the peel just falls off of it when peeling which is really nice.

Jasdip: Gilroy, California is the garlic capital of the USA if not the world. Here is a link to a website that ships garlic. Also gives info on how to store and expected storage life span. If their long distance free phone number is not accessible for you in Canada, at the very top of the page is a link for sending them an e-mail about shipping to Canada. I share your feelings about any food product made in China! I would rather try to grow my own. Speaking of that, go to Google and type in the search words: growing garlic. If garlic can be grown in Minnesota I would think you could do it where you live. Here is a link that might be useful: The Garlic Shoppe