I'm confused! What is this Hardneck Garlic Seed stuff?

     OK, I realize you probably know there are not Hardneck Garlic Seeds per se.

If we think loosely of what a seed is it comes to our mind "something that grows a plant". Variations of that definition may be an actual seed, a clove, a cutting, a tubule or a piece of root. Regarding hardneck garlic there are actually 2 variations of a "seed".

     The most commonly used source of a new plant is a Hardneck Garlic Seed Clove which is simply a clove from a garlic bulb. That clove seed contains everything needed to make a mature garlic bulb over a single growing season. It's the same clove you may eat as part of a recipe. However when planted it can yield 4-6 edible cloves so riches from a small deposit. In contrast to the "other Hardneck Garlic Seed " that I'll talk about later a clove has a body full of energy to produce a larger plant. Think of the clove body size as a little bag of natural fertilizer. The bigger the bag the more likely to produce a thicker stalk plant. Therefore a bigger bulb from a bigger plant. When you buy large or jumbo size garlic bulbs someone has already sorted out for you the bulbs with the larger cloves.  You will still have a minor sorting to do once you've broken the hardneck seed bulbs apart into individual cloves. Not all cloves from a large bulb are big enough for the best size production. Another grower once said "Plant the best and eat the rest". This comes up on my page talking about planting garlic.

     The second form of a Hardneck Garlic Seed develops as a "bulbil" at the top of a Hardneck Garlic on the garlic scape. It's kind of a garlic flower yet does not require pollination to occur. It's not even a flower (although it looks pretty). The "flowerette" at the top of a scape is simply a collection of plant parts that asexually (non pollinating male/female) can grow a replica of the plant after a few seasons of development. Think of some insect stages such as ticks going through their nymph, juvenile and adult stages. The end result is the same as the beginning yet it takes seasons/stages for it to occur. Because one single plant can produce many/many bulbils in the scape a grower can multiply their variety less expensively yet over a greater time frame. A few (very few) garlic seed providers actually sell bulbil heads or even bulbils that have been grown through 1 season so it shortens the time frame to reach a mature garlic bulb size. You're probably getting a much greater diversity of potential bulb size so be prepared to do your own culling as you finish growing them out.