Elephant garlic
Elephant garlic: Sowing, planting and harvest calendar
Elephant garlic is an unusual bulb crop for a kitchen garden, immediately recognisable by its generous proportions. Its botanical name is Allium ampeloprasum, and it belongs to the Amaryllidaceae family. Despite its familiar name and garlic-like bulb, it is more closely related to leeks than to ordinary garlic, Allium sativum. This relationship helps explain why its appearance and flavour are distinctive rather than simply those of an oversized garlic variety.The underground bulb contains a small number of very large cloves enclosed in protective skins. A mature head often has only three or four cloves, each much larger than a typical garlic clove. Size varies with the planting material and growing conditions, so every plant does not produce an equally impressive head. Some bulbs remain undivided and form a single rounded piece instead of separate cloves.Small bulblets may also occur around the outside of the main bulb. These are separate structures…
