Single Clove Per Head Garlic

[falkon]

I have seen a garlic variety in supermarket with a single clove in the whole garlic as in the pictures below. Is this a hybrid variety ?... has anyone tried sowing this...

[Flummery]

It wouldn't be Elephant Garlic would it?

[falkon]

maybe they are called elephant garlic..I dont know the name... this is some sort of chineese variety

[HotStuff]

From what I understand autumn planted Garlic needs a good frost to trigger the process of splitting into cloves. Could it be that this stuff just hasn't been exposed to cold enough temperatures?

I did some Googling and found this page which may be of interest.

[Flummery]

Elephant garlic is related to leek.

[rana]

They sell this single clove garlic in Makro as chinese garlic. It's excellent as there is so much less faffing around peeling them.

[falkon]

it is infact Elephant garlic .. this is what i found on wiki..

"There are also much smaller cloves with a hard shell that occur on the outside of the bulb. These are often ignored, but if they are planted, they will the first year produce a non-flowering plant which has a solid bulb, essentially a single large clove. In their second year, this single clove will break up into many separate cloves. Elephant garlic is not generally propagated by seeds."

Elephant garlic - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[adekun]

Thanks HotStuff for including the link. The head of elephant garlic I bought had four cloves. I haven't been able to get a decent harvest since replanting it a couple of times.
Cold is what makes the garlic divide - I wonder if the stuff in the supermarket was a one off or indeed a special variety?

[zazen999]

it is infact Elephant garlic .. this is what i found on wiki..

"There are also much smaller cloves with a hard shell that occur on the outside of the bulb. These are often ignored, but if they are planted, they will the first year produce a non-flowering plant which has a solid bulb, essentially a single large clove. In their second year, this single clove will break up into many separate cloves. Elephant garlic is not generally propagated by seeds."

Elephant garlic - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It's not just elephant garlic that does this, I had a few last year and moved them and let them flower; and next year I'll probably get normal cloves.

[realfood]

I had a close look at the Chinese "rounds" of garlic earlier this year, and from the taste and texture it is a true garlic and not elephant garlic.
I tried googling to find out how they produce it but drew a blank. My best guess is that they plant it in the normal way and lift it early before it splits into cloves. Interestingly, some of my Chinese rounds were showing signs of splitting when I bought them. I replanted one in the Spring and it had split by the time I lifted it in July.
If you want an easy peeling garlic, plant hardneck garlic.