The Elephant Garlic in the Room

It's Michelle's second favourite time of the gardening year, garlic time!  There are very few things more satisfying than yanking on the drying husk of a plant and pulling a ginormous head of garlic out of the ground. 

The head pictured above is especially ginormous because it is elephant garlic. It is interesting to note, at least it's interesting to garden nerds like us, that elephant garlic isn't truly garlic, it's a member of the leek family.  It is a little milder and has a different texture than true garlic. It is VERY hard to push it through a garlic press without squirting yourself in the eye, and yes, we we learned that the hard way. 

This year we ended up with far too many heads of elephant garlic and some of them stayed in the ground a wee bit too long, meaning they won't store nicely long term.  So we are going to have to try something new and pickle a bunch of the giant cloves. A terrible shame, we know.  ;) 

Can't wait to try this new delicacy in the coming weeks.  The garden gives us something different and exciting every single year.