Elephant Garlic is indeed a wonderful leek. Here in 8b, on a slope, it will survive horrible drought, competition with grass and weeds, and total neglect. Used in a Creme of Leek soup, it is outstanding. Used in vichysoisse it is amazing. Latkes made with Elephant Garlic are also beyond belief. These are all made with fresh, lively plants, not dormant bulbs. The bulbs, you roast in the wrappings, and then squeeze the soft creamy center out onto a nice cracker and enjoy the amazing flavor of a roasted garlic spread. When cooking with leeks and onions, remember that the nutrition is in the greens and root hairs. If you toss the root hairs you are tossing the potassium. Most recipes demand that you toss the green part of the leek. Foolish that would be. The green tops are divine cooked in. One more secret. The flowers, the big lovely flowers are very tasty indeed. Sweet, floral, onion-garlic spice. Toss a few in a salad, the flowers alone are worth keeping the plant for. Check out the link for flower pictures and proof that elephant garlic can compete with weeds. Bob Here is a link that might be useful: Remember the Elephant Garlic

Music. Hardy, widely adapted, dependable, stores very well for a hardneck, large easy to use cloves, bulbs can get large, strong flavor (so easy to cook with). I still have some usable bulbs from last year's July/August harvest. VietNamese Red makes a nice, milder companion variety, but does not store as well; so does Siberian. I also like Japanese, also large cloves and seems to be also very dependable. Big robust plants, seems to be a bit earlier than Music. These all have the added feature of scapes for early summer cooking. Those are my favorites, but zone 8 suggests that the Creoles might be just what you would like, even though they are not so well adapted to my Minnesota garden.

The sand leek (Allium scorodoprasum) is also sometimes called rocambole and usually but not always has bulbils along with the flowers. Elephant garlic is also sometimes called and even sold incurrectly as rocambole. The sand leek will have small bulbs with small cloves, and the elephant garlic will have large cloves on bigger bulbs or simply as big rounds and will have much heavier and robust foliage, while the sand leek is much daintier. If that is the foliage in the picture, I would guess that you got elephants that were originally identified as rocambole, or perhaps one of its wilder leek relatives such as the kurrat or Egyptian leek which is a bit smaller than the closely related elephants and there are several strains of each of those as well. Looks like one of the leeks to me. (they are all edible)

I'm up on the Caprock, just east of Lubbock. I grow lots of alliums. Chives, garlic chives, elephant garlic, Egyptian walking onions all do well for me, though I rarely eat the garlic chives and elephant garlic. My experience with potato onions is that they produce lots of very small bulbs that we don't really use. Other far southern growers have reported the same results. Kind of the same with every shallot variety that I've tried. In the onion department, I do very well with the intermediate day onions from Dixondale Farms, especially Candy and Superstar. Even the long day Red River performs well for me. We have such intense late freezes here, sometimes onion killing single digits the first week of March, that I have to plant the short day onions too late to really get a good harvest, though I do plant Southern Belle for a very early and tasty harvest of mid-size onions. I used to plant two varieties from seed in the fall for overwintering; Desert Sunrise from Johnny's and the widely available Walla Walla Sweet. I was usually successful with overwintering them, but I gave it up in favor of the ease of using the more expensive transplants from Dixondale. Garlic is one of my favorite things to grow and eat. I have been growing and saving my own planting stock of a locally grown California Early for over eight years. It is very productive here. The rest of my lineup is Cuban Purple ( a beautiful purple red wrapped Creole with larger cloves than the other Creole I tried-Ajo Rojo); Mild French ( a Texas heirloom silverskin with larger cloves than the first silverskin I tried-S&H Silverskin); and Early Red Italian-very similar to California Early, except a few days later and a red tint to the wrappers. These last three came from Filaree Farms up in Washington state and after three years are beginning to settle down and adjust to their new home. Several years ago, I abandoned Inchelium Red, but I didn't give it a fair trial. When I started growing garlic, I planted the last week of September following the advice of Bob Anderson at Gourmet Garlic Gardens in Bangs, Texas. All went well for a few years, but then we had a series of winter in which we had a very cold spell (lows in the teens or single digits) in November or early December and it badly damaged the California Early that sprouts early and makes a lot of vigorous top growth early. I changed my planting date to the first week of November and no problems since. The earlier date would probably work for you. I like Forever Yong's selection of garlic. Another way to find locally adapted garlic is to go your local farmer's market and sample what is offered and get a start of what you like. As for the native, Allium drummondii, I find the bulbs small, hot and bitter-basically inedible, though it is a pretty wildflower or garden subject. Good luck with your allium adventure. Many are very well adapted to this area and they provide a lot of interest before the typical warm season vegetables get ready and year around flavor for the kitchen. KH