Best Garlic for Beginners (What to Plant Your First Season)
, by Earthwise Garlic, 4 min reading time
The variety you start with shapes your whole first season. 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, here's what we'd tell a first-time grower.
What makes a good beginner garlic
Large cloves are forgiving. They're 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. A beginner variety should perform across a range of conditions, not just ideal ones.
And flavor. There's no point growing garlic if the result tastes like what's already at the grocery store.
Our recommendation: Music
Music is the most widely grown hardneck variety in North America, and it earns that. It's a Porcelain type that produces 4 to 6 large cloves per bulb, has thick outer skins that help it store, and delivers a rich, full-bodied flavor that holds up well in cooking.
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 covers most of what it takes.
Music stores around 6 months under good conditions. If you use garlic regularly in the kitchen, that's not a problem.
If you want longer storage: Inchelium Red
Inchelium Red is the right choice if you want garlic that lasts. It's a softneck artichoke variety that stores 6 to 9 months, has a mild, slightly sweet flavor, and won the 1990 Rodale Kitchens taste test.
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 in warmer parts of the country or if your winters are unpredictable.
The tradeoff is that softnecks don't produce scapes, so you miss that spring harvest bonus. And the flavor is milder than Music. Some people prefer that.
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 them side by side also teaches you the practical differences in person. You'll see what scape removal looks like, how the two types cure differently, and which flavor you reach for first.
What to skip your first season
Georgian Fire is very hot and better appreciated once you know what you like. Ukrainian Red is excellent but stores about the same length as Music. Donostia Red is our most interesting variety, 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.
Avoid grocery store garlic entirely. It's often treated with sprout inhibitors, 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
Plant in fall. Garlic needs cold to develop properly. In most of the U.S. that means October through November.
Use the largest cloves. When you break your bulbs apart for planting, set aside the smallest ones for cooking and plant only the biggest. Clove size affects bulb size at harvest more than almost anything else.
Mulch right after planting. Three to four inches of straw or shredded leaves suppresses weeds through the long season 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 that stretch produces smaller bulbs regardless of how well everything else went.
New to growing garlic? See our complete growing guide for step-by-step planting instructions covering the entire process from planting to harvest.
We ship seed garlic from Coburg every September for fall planting. If you have questions about which variety makes sense for your climate, reach out and we're happy to talk through it. Or browse the full catalog and see all six varieties side by side.