Now that Nick is safely ensconced in a rain-lashed tent at the Green Man Festival, I thought I’d take the opportunity to crow about my VASTLY SUPERIOR garlic.
Compare and contrast the bulbs above. Note that one set of garlic bulbs are small and puny, like sparrows’ kneecaps. Note how the other set of garlic bulbs appear huge in comparison to their surroundings, like Paul Daniels’ head.
OK, so they ‘may’ be different varieties… and I ‘may’ have planted Elephant garlic, but my choice of variety has proven to be astute, especially after this summer’s rotten weather. Elephant garlic thrives in damp conditions, is pretty robust when it comes to white rot and is also undesirable to many garden pests, especially vampire bats. Slugs in particular hate it because it makes their breath stink.
I planted my bulbs out last November so the growing season is quite long, but I literally had to do nothing to them… just dug them up when the stalks started to go brown and wilt.
Now that’s my kind of vegetable.
So… I generously give you a share of my garlic bounty, from which you extract a few of the more underwhelming specimens for the purpose of mocking? While you’ve secretly been growing your own, naturally larger variety, in idyllic rust-free conditions? Might I ask if you enjoyed the mammoth beetroots I successfully nurtured on the allotment, which have disappeared during my vacation, and also ask how your own grown beetroot has fared in this mysterious elephant friendly plot of yours? Eh? EH???
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