How to Buy Seed Garlic: What to Look For and Why It Matters
, by Earthwise Garlic, 4 min reading time
Not all garlic is seed garlic. That distinction matters more than most people realize, and it's the first thing worth understanding before you order anything.
Garlic sold at grocery stores is treated to extend shelf life. Planting it is a gamble at best. The variety is usually unlabeled, the origin unknown, and whatever pathogen pressure it's carrying comes with it right into your soil. Seed garlic, by contrast, is grown specifically for replanting. It's selected for bulb quality, inspected for disease, and handled with the intention that it will go into the ground rather than onto a cutting board.
What to Actually Look For
The most important thing to know when buying seed garlic is that disease travels with the clove. White rot, in particular, is a soil-borne fungal pathogen that persists for decades once it's established. There's no fixing it after the fact. This is why sourcing matters so much. Reputable seed garlic suppliers grow their stock under inspection and can tell you what oversight their crop is under.
At Earthwise Garlic, every crop is inspected annually by the Oregon Department of Agriculture for disease during the spring growth season. The farm operates as an ODA licensed nursery. That's not marketing language. It's a legal designation with inspection requirements behind it.
Beyond disease status, look for these things when evaluating a seed garlic source:
- Variety identification. You should know exactly what you're planting. Different varieties perform differently by region, flavor profile, and storage length. A supplier who can't tell you the variety name is a supplier who can't tell you much.
- Bulb size. Larger cloves produce larger bulbs. If you're buying seed garlic and the cloves look small, your harvest will reflect that. Ask what typical bulb size looks like for the varieties you're ordering.
- Regional fit. Hardneck varieties like Music, Ukrainian Red, and Georgian Fire are well suited to cold winters and perform across most of the continental US. Softneck varieties like Inchelium Red and Lorz Italian tolerate milder winters and store longer after harvest.
Hardneck vs. Softneck: The Short Version
Hardneck garlic produces a scape in late spring, has fewer but larger cloves per bulb, and stores four to eight months after curing depending on variety — Donostia Red is the notable exception at nine to ten months. Georgian Fire stores six to eight months. Music around six. Rocambole types like Ukrainian Red store four to six months. The flavor tends to be more complex, and many cooks and growers consider hardnecks the superior table garlic.
Softneck garlic skips the scape, packs in more cloves per bulb, and stores longer — six to nine months. If you're growing for a farmers market or want maximum storage flexibility, softneck has advantages. If you want to braid your garlic, softneck is what you need.
Most of our customers growing in the Pacific Northwest, the upper Midwest, and the Northeast do well with hardneck varieties. Growers in the South and lower elevations often have better results with softnecks or with Creole types like Donostia Red, which handle heat and humidity better than standard hardnecks.
When to Order
Seed garlic sells out. This is not a platitude. Garlic is harvested once a year, supply is fixed, and growers who wait until October to order often find their preferred varieties gone. The presale window, usually August through September, is when serious growers place their orders. Shipping happens when the time to plant approaches, but the reservation is made well before that.
Planting timing depends on your location. In most of the US, garlic goes in the ground four to six weeks before the first hard freeze, typically late September through November. The goal is enough time for roots to establish before the ground freezes solid, but not so much warmth that the plants push significant top growth before winter.
Order early. Plant at the right time for your zone. Start with clean seed from a source that can tell you exactly what they're selling and how it's been handled.
Earthwise Garlic's 2026 presale is open now. We grow six heirloom varieties on our small family farm in Oregon's Willamette Valley and ship seed garlic nationwide. Idaho customers should review our Idaho plant quarantine notice before ordering, since a number of counties restrict allium bulb imports. Browse available varieties here.