Garlic by Barbara Sanders

So you think you have finished gardening because the Aspen leaves are starting to turn? One chore remains: planting garlic! There are basically 2 kinds of garlic: Hardneck and softneck. The hardneck variety has bigger cloves, is spicier, but stores for a shorter time—3 to 5 months. The beautiful braids of garlic that you might see are softneck which has smaller cloves, is milder and stores for about 6 to 8 months. There are several varieties of hardneck and softneck garlic: Rocambole, Purple Stripe, Porcelain, Artichoke, Silverskin, Asiatic/Turban, and Creole.   My favorites: Music is my favorite in the Porcelain Family; in the Purple Stripe Family, Persian Star and   Metechi; and in the Rocambole Family, Killanrney Red which doesn’t keep too long. I like garlic with large cloves, strong taste, and and one that does well in a cool, wet growing season. I just cooked a dinner with a from-the-garden Music after weeklong cure so it was still quite moist, and dinner was wonderfully pungent