Plant Elephant Garlic for a Big Garden Adventure

Ready for a different flavor in your kitchen and a fun allium to harvest? Try planting elephant garlic this fall. This big guy is technically in the leek family, but you’d never know by the look or the taste. How big is it? Think a baseball or a softball. The head of elephant garlic has five to seven cloves, any one of which can be larger than a small HEAD of regular garlic. Kids love harvesting this giant of the garlic patch, and it keeps well too, with a milder flavor than real garlic. The bulb of elephant garlic is not the only outsize part of the plant -- you'll get foliage about four-feet tall too! No hardneck-garlic-style-scapes with this leek, but globe-shaped flowers on straight stems. Cut off the flowers to conserve the plant's energy for the developing, underground bulb.