Otus Branch Farm

Prime hardneck garlic grown organically in the tiny mountain town of Todd, North Carolina

Purple Stripe

  • Hot! Our favorite for salsa and pesto.
  • Easy peeling

Our Purple Stripe is a classic rocambole variety of garlic, meaning that its cloves alternate from wide to narrow in a single layer around the hard neck stem. The taste is hot and strong, with everything a true garlic lover could want for roasting, sautéing, and making fiery pestos. When growing, its leaves have a distinctive ridged texture. Outer wrappers of each bulb will be purplish-to-white when you receive them in their cured state, but are very bright purple when first dug. Inner clove wrappers are brown to pink.

Music

Music is quite similar to Porcelain Extra Hardy, since it is also a Continental-type garlic. Its primary distinguishing features are that Music’s bulbs are generally redder-skinned, and their shape is a little rounder and less oblong. In vigor, taste, size, and storage-life, Music is every bit as much a top-performer as Porcelain Extra Hardy. The flower stalks or scapes of both Music & Porcelain Extra Hardy are great for grilling, pesto, and pickling if harvested just as they curl into a loop.

Porcelain

This is a star performer in all-around size, vigor, storage-life, and taste. Porcelain Extra Hardy is a Continental-type hardneck garlic (i.e. all large cloves), with mostly-white outer skins on the bulbs and some pink to purple inner skins wrapping each clove. It has tons more flavor than any garlic you will find in the grocery store, but is not quite as hot as some of the rocambole (Purple Stripe & Roja) or Turban varieties. Porcelain garlic plants are large and statuesque, with a tall scape that is great for culinary use if cut just as it curls into its first loop. The papery wrappers or skins on Porcelain Extra Hardy are tightly attached to each clove, making peeling a little more of a task than with Rocamboles, but this trait allows for an exceptional shelf life.

Turban

  • Huge bulbs and cloves, great for chefs
  • No scapes

Turban is similar to the rocambole varieties, but grows as a shorter, wider plant. Depending upon environmental conditions, it can grow as a hard neck (i.e.- forming a central flower stalk or ‘scape’), or as a softneck (i.e.- no flower stalk/scape). Turban’s scapes, when they form at all, are the shortest and latest of any of our garlics, and do not even need to be cut (unlike all other hardneck varieties). But what Turban lacks in plant-stature and scape-size, it makes up for when it comes to huge, delicious bulbs and great taste.

Roja

  • Easy peeling
  • Our favorite for roasting

Our Roja is a classic rocambole type (i.e., alternating wide and narrow cloves around a hard neck stem). It has great, strong garlic flavor, and the cloves are easy to peel in the kitchen. The plants grow taller than Turban or Purple Stripe, though not quite as tall as the Continental types. Scapes from both Purple-Stripe and Roja tend to be later and woodier than the Continental varieties (i.e.- Music & Porcelain Extra Hardy) above, so if you want to cook with them, it is important to harvest them early, perhaps even before they make a full curl. Outer bulb wrappers will be reddish-to-white when you receive them in their cured state, but are quite red when first dug. Inner clove wrappers are brown to pink.