Garlic for sophisticates: which varieties are worth growing, and how

Back in the sixties sophisticated cooks were advised to 'rub the salad bowl' with a clove garlic, excellent advice if you were going to eat the salad bowl. By the 1970's garlic we were tossing garlic into everything from casseroles to pizza as our food evolved from charred chops and boiled veg. I have even eaten garlic flavoured ice-cream, which wasn't as bad as I expected.

Back then potatoes were just 'spuds' , instead of Idaho or Purple Congo. 'Garlic' was the unnamed kind still sold in most supermarkets today, usually imported, bleached, irradiated and chemically treated to stop it sprouting. Sometimes 'purple' is added to the label, and the price. The taste is pungent, but better than no garlic at all.

The most delicious, subtly flavoured garlic is fresh, harvested within the last three months, and still available now from last November's local harvest. It will be sweet, with rich overtones.

Sophisticated cooks prefer named varieties, all of which have their own particular flavour. They may be white, streaky deep or pale purple, or pink. You will find them at Farmer's Markets, backyards, and in gourmet kitchens.

There are well over two dozen garlic varieties for sale in Australia now - and 'now' is the time to grab the varieties you want to plant , as the best soon sell out, even though it won't be planted till late February or March

Garlic is planted as the soil cools, but grows its bulb as the soil warms up. It's harvested about November in our climate, when about two-thirds of its stem has yellowed.

Why would you want to grow a veg that takes from 6-9 months to mature, needs weed free soil, feeding, extremely careful harvesting, then must be hung up for weeks to dry? If you had ever tasted truly fresh garlic, or compared 'imported nameless' garlic to a variety like 'Italian Pink' you wouldn't ask the question. Growing and harvesting also isn't as difficult as it sounds.

Some have been developed for warmer areas and don't need winter's cold soil. Others do best with more reliably cool springs than ours. These are my favourites so far, and all good grown locally.

The absolute best - or the best for my cooking style - is Italian Pink. It's actually Australian bred, but has the classic sharpness of Italian salads and one of the richest garlic flavours when cooked.

It's one of the earliest to crop, in 4-5 months instead of 5-9 months, but with good size cloves if well fed and watered. It is definitely 'pink' rather than purple, highly coloured, and one of the best garlics for long storage lasting up to 9 months, excellent if you want to keep your own cloves to plant next season. It can be grown in the subtropics but also tolerates cold, so is excellent for our 'will be freeze or bake' spring weather.

Australian purple is another of the earliest garlics to mature. It's also possibly the sweetest, and least harsh when used raw. Tasmanian Purple is one of the most highly coloured garlics, but it doesn't keep as long as some other varieties - 4-6 months instead of 5-9 months.

Australian White is what the name implies, another good variety for our cold winters.

Black garlic isn't a variety, but garlic that's been slowly aged in gentle warmth for 4-7 months till the cloves are black and sticky. The pungency becomes sweetness, with a more complex flavour.

You can create black garlic at home, but I'm carefully not giving the method as heat resistant Clostridium botulinum spores can germinate in the warmth needed to caramelise the cloves, producing the potentially deadly or paralytic botulism toxin. Commercial black garlic is produced in meticulously controlled conditions.

Garlic needs need weed-free, well-drained soil with no gungy half rotted blobs of 'compost' that may trigger rots, and at least six hours of sunlight a day

Plant individual cloves pointed side up, about 15cm apart, and 5-10cm deep: the warmer the weather, the deeper you need to plant

Mulch, but not too deeply - about 10cm of peas straw or other mulch that won't compact into a water-resisting mat or perfect. Feed the young in the first months, but stop over winter and before harvest. Water when the soil dries out, but stop watering when the leaves begin to yellow as the bulbs ripen.

Keep the stems weed free - garlic doesn't do well with competition. Snip off any curling stems, as they will produce garlic seed, and reduce the size of your bulbs. You can also chop off some of the tender garlic greens: delicious, but too much snipping means fewer and smaller cloves. Harvest your garlic when about two-thirds of the stem is yellow. If you wait too long the bulbs may split.

MORE JACKIE FRENCH:

Harvest gently! Keep any damaged bulbs aside for early use.

Hang the rest of them in bunches by their stems in a cool, dark dry spot for 4-6 weeks to dry. A shed is best, unless you want your spare room to smell of garlic. Once they are fully dry, cut off stems or plait them.

Store in mesh bags, or hang up plaits or bunches - not near the stove as moisture will rot them. In fact avoid in the kitchen except for the bulb you're using. Garlic plaits looks decorative hanging above the stove, but the garlic soon rots, or germinates. Once the green shoots appear, the garlic turns bitter.

A confession: I still have a net containing three small bulbs of supermarket garlic, bought to see us through the two month 'garlic drought' when we'd eaten the last of the local garlic. The imported cloves inside the bulbs are probably dust by now-I should have thrown them out last November. Tomorrow's lunch will be home-grown salad, gently flavoured with finely chopped raw 'Italian Pink'. The gravy for dinner will be rich in garlic, sautéed till soft and sweet in olive oil, and my husband will be gently garlic-flavoured too.

PS. Most public displays of bulbs and annuals are well-tended or expensively regularly replaced.