I have been working a lot with garlic recently (what with all my farm work) so I decided to do a post on garlic. First, a note on planting garlic; at FRESH, we've been planting hard-necked garlic, and the way we did that was by breaking apart the garlic into cloves, (which is pretty hard to do by the way) which will then be planted and from each clove will grow a full bulb of garlic. Who knew that that was the way to plant garlic?? In any case, autumn seems to be a good garlic planting season to get them in the spring. Moreover, the Northeastern environment seems to be better for hard-necked garlic than for soft-necked (though at my other job, I got to plant soft-necked).
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| From French painter & manuscript illustrator Jean Bourdichon's Book of Hours (early 16th century), emphasizing the decorative qualities of garlic and other alliums |
Common Name: Garlic
Scientific Name: Allium sativum
Related Species: Onions and Leeks, Ornamental Flowers
Language of Flowers: Symbol of courage and strength; herb of Mars (astrological)
Garlic is of the allium genus and, along with other alliums, contains a sulphur-rich oil, which is why they have such a strong smell. During Medieval times, garlic was believed to ward off evil and, if fastened to the horse's bridle, to help win a race. Different alliums were prevalent in the ancient world and wild garlics of England, known as ramsons, have white star-like flowers. Medicinally, garlic has powerful antiseptic qualities and is a good natural substitute for antibiotics. For all you literature lovers out there, in Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, the Summoner reeked of garlic smell, which was one of his most unpleasant characteristcs.
Well that is all for now. I hope this has been enlightening for you and that you have enjoyed reading about garlic as much as I have enjoyed writing about it. I hope to do more posts like this in the future, so until then, bear with me!
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