Organic Seed Garlic - Boundary Garlic, BC, Canada

Henry touring one of our fields of organic seed garlic at Boundary Garlic in Midway, BC

Boundary Garlic specializes in heritage garlic seed which we sell by mail order across Canada. We sell only certified organic seed garlic. Seed garlic is garlic which has been grown with meticulous attention to quality. We have had organic certification since 2004.

My husband Henry and I - I’m Sonia - began growing garlic on the ranch in 1999. The ranch is in the Boundary area in the Southern Interior of British Columbia. In the beginning we started with several heirloom cultivars. These flourished and now we have more than 100 distinct strains of garlic in the ground at the garlic farm.

In 2009 we acquired a lot of new garlics from Al Picketts of Eureka Garlic in PEI. We will have these for sale in the coming years. Meanwhile, you can contact Al directly to see what he has available.

Our relationship with garlic is transforming into a conscious partnership. The more carefully we listen, the better we are able to meet the needs of the different garlics and to collaborate with them in their culture and dissemination.

The Canadian climate is particularly well suited to growing true hardneck garlic varieties. We continue to introduce new cultivars and select those which thrive in our cold winters and moderately hot summers. We also have a few softneck garlics and some ‘weakly bolting hardnecks’. For information on the changing face of garlic classification see the article by Bob Anderson on the Garlic Family Tree.

In 2010 there will be two catalogues. The Main 2010 Catalogue is now available. The Main Catalogue features the garlics we have in substantial amounts - the Porcelains: Dan's Russian, Fish Lake 3, Georgian Fire, Leningrad, Majestic, Northern Québec, Susan Delafield, and Yugoslavian, and the standard Purple Stripes: Chesnok Red, and Persian Star. The Collectors Catalogue will come out in mid to late August. It will contain all the other garlics we will have for sale in 2010. There is more about ordering from these catalogues on the ordering page.

At present the strains of garlic shown on our varieties pages, in addition to the ones in the Main Catalogue, are the ones that were available in 2009. Most of these will be available this year and there are likely to be some new ones too. There will be a good selection of cultivars from each of the five hardneck varieties: Rocambole, Porcelain, Standard Purple Stripe, Marbled Purple Stripe and Glazed Purple Stripe; from two weakly bolting hardnecks: Asiatic and Turban, and from the softneck variety Artichoke. We expect to have moderate amounts of the Rocamboles: German Red, Korean Purple, Puslinch, and Spanish Roja, as well as the weakly bolting hardnecks: Asian Tempest, Chinese Purple, Sweet Haven, Tibetan, and Thai. There will also be smaller quantities of many other strains.

We have grown many of these strains up from bulbils. This is an excellent way to develop your planting stock. It is economical and in the years it takes for bulbs to reach their full potential the garlic strains adapt to your particular growing conditions. For more information on growing from bulbils go to our bulbils page and for information on availability contact us. For more of Henry's pictures of bulbils and of our experience growing bulbils visit his photo gallery, a work in progress.

Bulbils of the Purple Stripe, Khabar	Bulbils of the Porcelain, Susan Delafield	Bulbils of the Rocambole, Korean Purple
want to see more pics of bulbils? visit Henry's gallery

Garlic is really easy to grow in the home garden. We have lots of tips for growing our gourmet garlic. If you don’t find the answers to your questions on this website, please feel free to email us for help in producing superlative garlic bulbs that will keep for many months.