Orlando Garlic Company
Reviews
Press, keeper, or a magnet
Shop notes, not star ratings. UF/IFAS Gardening Solutions is the garlic page on Grow. Softneck in late fall. A press does not plant a clove. A keeper does not replace curing. A magnet does not store a bulb.
Florida is not a garlic state. Grocery bulbs are usually California or imported. UF/IFAS names softneck types such as Artichoke and Creole for this heat. Hardneck wants a long chill that Central Florida does not give. Garlic is not in the planting table of the Florida Vegetable Gardening Guide, and it is not on the What to Plant by Month lists either. Onions, leeks, and shallots are. Treat late fall through early winter as the window, not a calendar day from a blog.
Elephant garlic is Allium ampeloprasum, a bulbing leek. It is milder, larger, and the Leon County post says it takes heat better than regular garlic. That post is written for the Panhandle. Read it as a lead, not an Orange County recipe. A grocery clove may also have been treated to discourage sprouting. Mechanically you can plant it. Varietally you may be buying California weather.
Kitchen
The press is for cloves you already have. The peeler is for a head you do not want to pick at. The set is both. Buy them because dinner is tonight, not because November is coming.
Mash cloves you already peeled. Get this.
Roll skins off a whole head. Get this.
Press and peel in one kitchen set. Get this.
After harvest
Curing is days of air, not a gadget. UF/IFAS says put bulbs in a well-ventilated spot with bright, indirect light for a few days, then cut the leaves and store cool and dark. The keeper is that last part. Leon County describes a week in a single layer for elephant garlic, then trim and store eight to ten months cool and dark. A sealed jar on a sunny shelf ruins that work.
Keep cured bulbs cool and dark. Get this.
Cloth and door
An apron is cooking cloth. A garlic joke tee is a later souvenir. A magnet is last if the job is a fridge. Test the steel. Do not start with a shirt if the bed is empty in October.
An apron after the press exists. Get this.
A garlic shirt only if the souvenir is cloth. Get this.
A door souvenir. Test the steel first. Get this.
What to skip
Skip hardneck sold as a Florida crop. Skip a keeper for green, uncured bulbs. Skip a sealed jar on a sunny shelf. Skip a magnet if you needed cloves in the ground yesterday. Skip pulling on stalks at harvest. Loosen the soil and lift. Skip a grocery clove if you wanted Artichoke or Creole on purpose.
UF/IFAS harvest signal is a leaf count: about half dried and bent. Do not wait for all of them. On elephant garlic, Leon County describes the wrapping leaves decreasing and the tops turning lighter green or yellow. If you plant late or starve the plant of water, you may harvest one big round bulb instead of cloves. Leave those in the ground and they should divide the next year, or cook them as they are. A scape in spring is the flowering stalk. Remove it so energy goes into the bulb, and eat the head if you want.
A city enamel plaque is a place souvenir. A garlic magnet is a fruit-and-bulb souvenir. Neither is a November clove.
Sets: Sets. Grow: Grow. Season: Season. Shop: Shop.
How the objects fail
A press fails on uncured, wet garlic that should still be on a rack. A keeper fails if you fill it with green bulbs and close the house humidity in with them. An apron fails as a harvest plan. A magnet fails on stainless that will not hold. Softneck is the UF/IFAS type. Hardneck is a different winter. A joke tee fails as a planting date.
Clove lives on Meet Clove. Shop holds the catalog. Write sales@tabaconda.com if you need a plaque that is not on the wall.