Best Garlic for Beginners (What to Plant Your First Season)
, by Earthwise Garlic, 5 min reading time
If you've never grown garlic before, the variety you start with makes a real difference. Here's what we recommend and why, from a farm that's grown all six.
If you've never grown garlic before, the variety you start with makes a real difference. Not because some varieties are harder to grow, but because starting with the right one means you pull something impressive out of the ground your first season and want to do it again.
After growing six varieties on our farm in Coburg, Oregon, we have a clear recommendation. But we'll walk you through the reasoning so you can decide for yourself.
What Makes a Good Beginner Garlic
A few things matter most when you're starting out.
Large cloves are forgiving. They're easier to handle, easier to plant at the right depth, and they carry more stored energy going into the ground. Small cloves produce small plants. Large cloves give you a much better chance at a full-sized bulb your first time.
Reliable yields matter too. Some varieties are more sensitive to timing, climate, or soil conditions than others. A beginner variety should perform well across a range of conditions, not just ideal ones.
And flavor. There's no point growing garlic if the result tastes like what you can buy at the grocery store. The whole point of growing your own is the difference in character and freshness.
Our Recommendation: Music
Music is the most widely grown hardneck variety in North America, and it earns that reputation. It's a Porcelain hardneck that produces 4 to 6 large cloves per bulb, has thick protective outer skins that make it a good storer, and delivers a rich, full-bodied flavor that holds up in cooking and gets noticeably better than anything from a supermarket.
It's also forgiving. Music tolerates a range of planting times, does well in most U.S. climates that get a real winter, and doesn't require much fussing. Plant it in October or November, mulch it well, cut the scape in late spring, and pull it in July. That's most of what it takes.
The one thing Music doesn't do is store forever. Like most hardnecks, it keeps about 4 to 6 months under good conditions. If you use garlic regularly in the kitchen, that's not a problem. If you want something that might last all the way to next harvest, read on.
If You Want Longer Storage: Inchelium Red
Inchelium Red is our other beginner-friendly recommendation, and the right choice if you want garlic that lasts. It's a softneck artichoke variety that stores 6 to 12 months under good conditions, has a mild, slightly sweet flavor, and is one of the few garlic varieties to win a national taste test (it took first place at a Rodale Institute tasting in the 1990s).
Softnecks are also slightly more adaptable than hardnecks. They don't need quite as much cold to perform well, which makes them a better fit if you're in a warmer part of the country (zones 7 to 9) or if your winters are unpredictable.
The tradeoff is that softnecks don't produce scapes, which means you miss that spring harvest bonus. And the flavor is milder than Music. Some people prefer that. Others want garlic they can actually taste.
Growing Both Your First Season
If you're on the fence, our Hardneck and Softneck Starter Sampler includes a quarter pound of Music and a quarter pound of Inchelium Red. That's roughly 8 to 12 seed cloves of each, enough to plant a small bed of both and see which one you prefer before committing to a larger order next year.
Growing both side by side also teaches you the practical differences. You'll see what scape removal looks like in person, how the two types cure differently, and which flavor profile you reach for first in the kitchen.
What to Avoid Your First Season
Georgian Fire and Ukrainian Red are both excellent, but Georgian Fire is very hot and Ukrainian Red stores only 4 to 6 months like Music. Neither is a bad choice, but they're easier to appreciate once you have a baseline season under your belt.
Donostia Red is our most interesting variety, a Creole hardneck with stunning burgundy cloves and 9 to 10 months of storage. But Creole types do best in mild winters and can be less predictable in colder zones. Worth trying in year two once you know what your conditions are like.
Avoid grocery store garlic entirely. It's often treated with sprout inhibitors to extend shelf life, which means it either won't sprout or produces weak plants. Even organic grocery garlic isn't selected for replanting performance.
The Basics That Matter More Than Variety
Whatever you plant, a few fundamentals make the biggest difference in results.
Plant in fall. Garlic needs cold to develop properly. In most of the U.S. that means October through November. In the Pacific Northwest, late October through early November is the sweet spot.
Use the largest cloves. When you break your bulbs apart for planting, set aside the smallest cloves for cooking and plant only the biggest ones. Clove size directly affects bulb size at harvest.
Mulch immediately after planting. Three to four inches of straw or shredded leaves suppresses weeds through the long season, retains moisture in spring, and protects the bed over winter.
Water consistently in spring. Most of your bulb size is determined during the April through June growth window. Garlic that dries out during this period produces smaller bulbs regardless of how well everything else went.
Ready to Get Started
We ship seed garlic from Coburg, Oregon every September, timed for fall planting. Orders over $60 ship free nationwide.
Order Music Garlic Seed
Order Inchelium Red Seed
Order the Hardneck and Softneck Starter Sampler
Not sure which size to order? A quarter pound gives you 8 to 12 seed cloves, enough to plant a small test bed and see how the variety performs in your soil before scaling up.
Questions about growing garlic in your climate? Reach out anytime.