Fresh Purple Garlic Bulb - Great for Planting and Growing OR Eating

Purple Garlic That's Good Enough to Plant, or Good Enough to Roast Tonight

Five whole bulbs. Fresh, cured, never irradiated.

Most garlic in the grocery store has been treated so it won't sprout. That's the whole point of it. It's built to sit on a shelf. Plant a clove of it and you'll usually get a sad little green shoot and nothing else.

This is the opposite. These are live bulbs, cured and shipped whole, the same stock a grower would put in the ground. Break one open and every clove in it will grow. So you get to decide what this order is for after it arrives.

Plant them, and next summer you'll pull up a season's worth of garlic. You'll also have next year's seed stock in your hand at the same time. Buy garlic once, save a few of the biggest bulbs back each year, and you may never buy it again.

Or eat them. Fresh purple garlic is a different ingredient than the bin stuff. It's pungent. You'll smell it when you open the box, before you've cut anything. Denser cloves, real heat raw, and it goes sweet and jammy when you roast a whole head with the top sliced off. Nothing about it says "seed" except the way we packed it.

About that packing. Your bulbs ship nestled in wood chips, and there's a reason for it. Garlic needs air moving around it and cushioning that won't trap moisture. A plastic bag will make a fresh bulb sweat and a bare box will bruise it. The chips do both jobs at once. It's how we'd store them ourselves.

Most people do both. Plant four, cook one, see what you think.

If you're planting it

Garlic is the least demanding thing in the garden, and it's one of the few crops you plant while everything else is dying back.

When. Plant in fall, 4 to 6 weeks before your ground freezes hard. For most of the country that's October into November. In mild-winter areas plant November into December, and chill the bulbs in the refrigerator for 4 to 6 weeks first so they get the cold period they need to split into a proper bulb.

How. Break the bulb into individual cloves the day you plant, not before. Leave the papery skin on each clove. Plant pointed end up, 2 inches deep, 6 inches apart, in loose soil that drains. Garlic hates sitting wet. Water it in once.

Then mulch. Put 3 to 4 inches of straw or leaves over the bed. This is the step people skip and it's the one that matters most. It holds the moisture steady and keeps the freeze-thaw cycle from pushing your cloves up out of the ground.

Then leave it alone until spring. You may see green shoots before winter. That's fine and it's supposed to happen. In spring, pull the mulch back a little, feed it once when the shoots are about 6 inches tall, and keep it watered through May and June.

Harvest. Mid to late summer, when the bottom third of the leaves have gone brown but the top leaves are still green. Don't wait for the whole plant to die. The wrappers break down and the bulbs won't store. Loosen with a fork, don't pull. Cure them somewhere shaded and airy for 2 to 3 weeks and they'll keep for months.

Every clove you plant becomes a full bulb, so five bulbs is enough to get a small bed going. That's a real year's supply for most households.

If you're eating it

Whole roasted, top sliced off, olive oil, foil, 400°F for 40 minutes until the cloves squeeze out like paste. On bread with salt. That's what you buy fresh garlic for.

Raw, it's got more bite than what you're used to. Cooked, it goes sweeter. Store it somewhere dry and dark with air around it. Not the fridge, not a sealed bag, and not next to the stove.

What you're getting

• Quantity: 5 whole purple garlic bulbs
• Type: Purple garlic, fresh and cured. Not treated, not irradiated, not sprout-inhibited
• Aroma: strongly fragrant and pungent. You'll smell it through the box
• Best for: fall planting. Also perfectly good eating garlic
• Ships: nestled in wood chips to keep the bulbs cushioned, dry, and breathing
• Sold by: Greenhouse PCA, a small family operation in the San Bernardino Mountains

Our 100% Satisfaction Guarantee

If there's a problem with your order, contact us and we'll make it right. Replacement or refund, your choice. That's it, no conditions attached to it.

What we won't do is quote you a germination percentage. Nobody can honestly promise you what your soil, your winter, and your watering are going to do. What we can promise is that what shows up at your door is fresh, whole, untreated garlic, and that if it isn't, you're covered.

Questions before you buy? Call or text us at 760-835-8711. A person answers.

Common questions

Can I really eat these, or is that just a technicality?
You can really eat them. It's the same garlic. The only difference between "seed garlic" and "eating garlic" is that seed garlic hasn't been treated to stop it sprouting. Ours hasn't been treated at all.

Is it too late to plant?
If your ground isn't frozen, plant it. Garlic planted late makes a smaller bulb, not no bulb. If your ground is frozen, hold the bulbs somewhere cool and dark and plant at the first thaw, or plant in a deep container.

Can I grow it in a pot?
Yes. At least 8 inches deep, drainage holes, 4 to 6 inches between cloves. Container garlic dries out faster, so check it more often.

How much garlic will 5 bulbs actually produce?
Every clove you plant becomes a full bulb. Break five bulbs apart and that's how many plants you'll have in the ground, minus whatever doesn't take.

Why is it packed in wood chips?
Because garlic needs airflow and cushioning at the same time. Sealed plastic sweats and a loose box bruises. The chips hold the bulbs still, absorb any moisture, and let them breathe the whole way to your door. Shake them off and plant, or brush them off and cook.

Do I have to buy it again next year?
No, and that's the best part. Set aside your biggest bulbs at harvest, replant those cloves in fall, and the patch runs itself. Save the largest ones every year and your garlic gets bigger over time, because it's adapting to your ground.

Order your 5-pack of fresh purple garlic.
Fall planting stock moves fast. When this season's harvest is gone, it's gone until next year.