Tasmanian Gourmet Garlic

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Middleton, TAS
Tasmanian Gourmet Garlic

Award Winning Organic Garlic. Specialty cultivars bred for unrivalled culinary excellence, grown in

Our passion for growing specialty culinary and seed garlic comes from a devotion to great garlic and a desire to have fresh garlic all year. Commercially grown garlic cultivars are selected for yield capability not flavour or aromas and are often some of the poorest flavoured garlics on the market. We have collected, grown and tested the most renowned cultivars in Australia and imported new award

winning, highly prized cultivars that grow well in our lovely cold climate. We love the fresh fruitiness of the early Turbans, rich sweetness of the Rocamboles, complex true-garlic flavours and aromas of the Creoles, the heat and fiery flavours of the Purple Stripe groups, spicy Silverskins and distinctive Marbled and Glazed Purple Stripes. We hope garlic gourmands and chefs will love and appreciate our culinary collection of cold grown garlics.

02/04/2026

MISLEADING MARKETING ON PACKAGED MANURES AND COMPOSTS IN HARDWARE STORES

I have always recommended natural, aged manures to improve your vegetable garden soil and I highly recommend sheep manure for Winter crops because it has a better balance of NPK and gentler nitrogen release.

Importantly, I recommend natural sheep manure collected from under shearing sheds and not commercially composted (see photo below).

I do not recommend the plastic-wrapped products from hardware stores because they are often anaerobic or so mineral-imbalanced that they harm your soils and plants. They are also ethically compromised and highly misleading with their product claims.
Here's why, and I'm using a product a customer spoke to me about yesterday to illustrate this - called Fine Farms Premium Sheep Manure.

Take a look at the product photograph below and then compare the truth:

1. The bag shows a sheep on pasture grass, suggesting natural grass based manures. But this company doesn't own farms or sheep; it collects the manure from sheep feedlots (stated on their website), where intensively farmed animals are kept in enclosed spaces and fed grains, minerals, and medicinal additives, which is not a natural diet.

So the manure is not made from natural pasture grass; it is partially digested grain products. The sheep are not ethically raised in pastures at stocking rates that allow a stress-free life and social engagements - they are raised in intensive livestock pens, and their manure is scraped up into piles beside rotting corpses.

2. The bag claims "Premium" sheep manure. Is there anyone who thinks that manure from grain-fed sheep held in feedlots is "premium"?

3. The bag claims "Natural and Organic" which is misleading. All manures are "natural", and a product only has to be carbon-based to claim it is "organic". It does not mean it is chemical-free, as "certified organic" products are. And intensive feedlots and grain-fed diets are not "natural".

What you might not know is that transitioning a lamb or sheep from pasture to feedlots and grain diets is emotionally stressful and hard on their digestion. Whilst mineral and medicinal supplements are supplied, there are still many deaths. Ethical organisations concerned with intensive livestock management have captured photographs of piles of dead sheep next to manure piles in feedlots.

How would the quality of this feedlot, grain-fed sheep manure possibly compare to the natural sheep manures collected from shearing sheds where sheep were born and raised on pastured lands and live in social group structures?

The last concern is that these companies, like Fine Farms compost the sheep manure, and whilst they say "no additives" and "no green waste" on the packaging, they are not compliant with the composting standards, and they have obviously added wood material products that can be seen in the photograph provided by my customer I spoke to.

If you really want a high-quality, natural sheep manure collected from shearing sheds, keep asking your local nurseries for it. With enough demand, they will source it, and your soils and plants will thank you.

And please look further than the pretty pictures and claims these companies make on these products. They are simply waste recyclers and their packaging claims are misleading.

16/03/2026

KEEP AS MUCH SCAPE STALK ON YOUR MATURING UMBELS AND BULBILS AS POSSIBLE AND POP THE HEADS IN A PAPER BAG TILL LATE SPRING FOR PLANTING

Many choose to plant their bulbils in Autumn, but I have always seen the benefit of planting them in late Spring when soil temperatures are above 10C, which avoids scapes and produces large rounds.

I plant them in shallow crates or black plastic pots that keep the soil warm and take them from planted to mature rounds in 3 months over Summer. Then they are harvested in the middle or at the end of Summer, cured, and ready for planting in Autumn, and these large rounds will produce large bulbs.

This means I need to fully mature and then keep the scapes and umbels viable until late Spring.

To do this, I leave them on the bulb until it has cured, then cut the scape as long as possible, providing the longest green stalk to feed, hydrate, and mature the bulbils with maximum quality.

I tie all my scapes together for the same cultivar and then pop the umbels into small brown paper bags or large paper bags to protect them until late Spring. Then, if some of the bulbils do drop off, they are caught in the bottom of the bags.

Here are some examples of the scapes and bagged scapes I've set aside for my late Spring planting.

15/03/2026

TIME TO MOVE YOUR EATING GARLIC INDOORS TO A WARM, STABLE, DRY AND OUT OF DIRECT SUNLIGHT SPOT

It's that time of year, when we need to separate our cured garlic into planting bulbs and eating bulbs and move the eating bulbs indoors.

As we reach the middle of March, being the first month of Autumn, we experience cooler nights and higher rainfall levels, which can trigger shooting in our garlic.

By moving them indoors and keeping them in a warm, dry, temperature-stable environment, they will maintain their dormancy for the full duration and not be triggered to shoot.

Some people pop them in cardboard boxes stuffed with newspaper and pop them under the bed in a spare room. Others store in the pantry in woven baskets that allow them to breathe. Any wall in the centre of the house will be more temperature-stable, but best to keep them out of direct sunlight.

Don't use either plastic or glass containers as they don't allow ventilation, which is important to these respiring bulbs.

11/03/2026

THE PEAR ARTICHOKE - A RARE BUT QUITE NORMAL BULB SHAPE AND CLOVE PATTERN

Occasionally, you might see an unusually shaped Artichoke garlic with a second tier of elevated cloves.

In France, where Artichokes garlic is one of their main commercial and home-grown garlic groups, it is a more common and the industry has given this garlic shape its own name, "Pear Bulbs". It's easy to see why.

When you peel away the outer bulb skins, you'll see the normal lower clove patterns and, above them, a set of cloves that have grown on the tip of the scape.

This is unusual because normally only bulbils grow on scapes, but in Artichokes, we can get these elevated cloves, not bulbils, on the scape tip.

In the lower left photo, we show the normal Artichoke bulb on the left, pear bulbs for the next two in the middle, and show you a scaping artichoke with bulbils on the right for comparison.

10/03/2026

THE AMAZING RARELY BOLTING ARTICHOKE

When you look at this first photograph, your first impression will be that these are hardneck garlic, and with the white bulb skin background and purple veins and blotching, you are likely to think these are Turbans or perhaps even Glazed Purple Stripes.

They are, in fact, Artichokes that have scaped. Whilst we commonly refer to Artichokes as being "softnecks", this is true most of the time, but the correct terminology would be "rarely bolting softnecks".

Occasionally, when the right seasonal weather conditions permit, Artichokes can produce scapes. Normally, they result in a terminated scape, meaning it does not emerge completely from the plant like other hardnecks, and produces bulbils in the pseudostem, either one or two sets.

What I love about this is that the clove shape and arrangement changes from a typical softneck (flat faced, variable clove shape and layered arrangement) to a more hardneck pattern of a single radial layer of wedge-shaped cloves.

I always treasure these bulbs, as they seem to produce very strong plants in the following season.

The second photograph shows a bolting Artichoke on the left and compares it to the same cultivar, which didn't bolt on the right, just to more clearly illustrate the different bulb shapes, clove shapes and arrangement.

07/03/2026

STORING MY FAVOURITE COOKING GARLIC IN THE FREEZER

All garlic has different storage durations with the shortest being the Turbans at 4-6 months and the longest being a luxurious 12 months with the Silverskins and Creoles.

But what do you do if your favourite garlic only stores for 5-7 months, and you want to use it all year round?

Well, I have this conundrum. I LOVE my Spicy Korean Mountain (Asiatic) for its incredible garlic butter exuberance.

It has an unxious, mouth-coating, buttery, garlicky wonderment that is absolutely perfect for garlic butter on steamed veggies or my favourite garlic naan. I simply cannot do without it.

I also cannot do without my Italian Artichokes, which store longer at 7-9 months ... but I MUST have them year-round.

So what do you do? You FREEZE them at their peak.

Freezing your garlic cloves means your favourite garlic is available year-round. It's at its peak when you store it just after curing, but it still retains all its incredible intensity and flavours developed during curing.

And to use them, you simply take them from the freezer (don't thaw) and slice, dice, mince or paste them whilst frozen - and cook with them immediately.

They'll have all the amazing, zingy, intense flavours of fresh garlic and the beauty of freezing is that the clove skins come off so easily.

The flavour intensity lasts for more than 18 months ... but after this it does tend to become milder.

Just split your bulbs into cloves, pop them in a zip lock bag and stick it in the freezer.

No hassles and easy-peasy.

04/03/2026

MORE SUBTROPICALS IN STOCK - SOUTHERN GLEN AND GLEN LARGE.

WE'LL SHIP WITHIN 24 HOURS OF ORDER RECEIPT AND WILL UPGRADE YOU TO EXPRESS SHIPPING FOR FREE.

We have many more great seed bulbs of both Southern Glen and Glen Large in stock, ready for immediate shipping.

And our free upgrade to Express Shipping will ensure you'll receive your seed bulbs in plenty of time for planting.

Subtropicals are a perfect match to the warmer climates of Queensland, Northern and Coastal NSW as well as Sydney, or are perfect to grow in a greenhouse in the colder climates.

When planted by mid-March, they'll harvest after only 5.5 months and store for 7-9 months.

Offer applies to orders containing Subtropicals seed bulbs only.

Existing orders with Subtropicals only have already been shipped by Express Post. Orders with Subtropicals and later-harvesting garlics will be shipped by the end of next week, to give us time prepare the later-harvesting bulbs.

REMEMBER: You can monitor our shipping targets and daily farm activities and progress in our SHIPPING AND STOCK UPDATES link
https://tasmaniangourmetgarlic.com.au/season-updates/

19/02/2026

DELAYED SEASON AND ORDER UPDATES

We are experiencing another delayed season, more than 3 weeks later than usual, however, very similar to last season's delay. Is anyone else experiencing a delayed garlic harvest?

Even more peculiar is that our Elephant Garlic has only just now decided it is ready to be harvested. This is over 6 weeks later than usual. And unusually, we are seeing large bulbs with only 3 cloves (see the photo).

We have about 7 days of harvesting left of Standard Purple Stripes, Marbled Purple Stripes, Rocamboles and Elephant garlic - and then we'll transition into the shed, ship our Subtropical orders and start seed grading and finishing the earlier harvested garlics that are fully cured.

However, these later-harvested garlic groups will be a challenge for our shipping schedules, and we'll have to force-cure them to try to reduce the curing period so they are safe to ship in March. Although we do predict there will be a slight delay in shipping as we will need to spend more time on these.

SHIPPING AND STOCK UPDATES
We are still maintaining our seasonal harvest and shipping journals that allow you to see what we are doing, and where we are up to in our harvest and shipping as well as stock updates.

LINK: https://tasmaniangourmetgarlic.com.au/season-updates/

When we start shipping, we will include the last order number we've shipped each day, so you can monitor our progress and estimate how quickly we will ship your orders.

Hoping the 2026 season will revert to a normal harvest time.

15/01/2026

DID ANYONE ELSE TRIAL SPRING PLANTING OF BULBILS TO FORCE ROUNDS?

A quick update: I've harvested my Italian Pink (Subtropical) bulbils. I always plant a small number each year to create rounds that will create full-sized plants the following season.

You can see that the pea-sized bulbils from the Subtropical pseudostem created really nice 20-35mm rounds. I will plant these out this coming February as a separate line, to monitor their health and final plant/bulb size before adding to the general stock line.

I planted mine at the very end of my beds in late Spring, in between my Rainbow chard, so they really were overcrowded very quickly by their massive leaves. Not optimal - but squeezed them in.

I am always intrigued by how tiny the plants are and yet how lovely and large the single rounds they produce.

Bulbils provide improved health and vigour and are easy to collect and grow in pots, when planted in Spring after day temperatures are higher than 18C and night temperatures higher than 10C (to force rounds).

How did you go?
If you share photos - include your state/region and garlic group.

05/01/2026

ROUNDS (OR SOLOS)

HOW DID YOU GO GROWING YOUR SMALLEST CLOVES (WITH 5TH LEAF TRIMMING) TO PRODUCE LARGE ROUNDS?

Several months ago, I wrote a post about using your tiny cloves to produce large rounds, by using a trick of trimming after 5th leaf to 5cm above the soil line.

I've just harvested my Early Californian (Artichoke) small cloves and wanted to show you that I obtained 40-53mm rounds (solos) and some even went on to produce 5 clove bulbs of 63mm. I've left several plants in the bed that produced over 5 leaves, as they have bulbs and will grow larger in the next 2 remaining weeks.

I didn't have to trim my tiny clove plants as our season in Southern Tasmania has been very cold, overcast and rainy right up to Christmas when we had 2 days of hail and 10C temperatures. And you can see by the bed photograph that the small plants never grew more than 5 leaves.

But if you are in warmer climate with good temperatures (and good growth) - you may need to trim your plants after 5th leaf down to 5cm above the soil line to force your plants to produce large rounds (solos). And for those in northern temperate climates, you may need to trim twice before allowing the plant to finally bulb.

Take a look at the photograph of the small cloves in the bed and see how tiny the plants are ... and yet - how large the rounds are.

These rounds are larger and heavier than any clove from a large bulb would be and will produce an incredibly large plant when planted this coming season.

But for those interested in their culinary use, they are huge and easy to peel.

Such a great outcome for tiny cloves!

How did you go? I would love to see your results.

Address

4241 Channel Highway
Middleton, TAS
7163

Website

http://www.TasmanianGourmetGarlic.com.au/

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