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Henry touring one of our fields
of organic seed garlic at
Boundary Garlic in Midway, BC |
Boundary Garlic began growing and selling seed garlic in October 2002 and in October 2019 Henry and Sonia retired from the seed garlic business.
This website is known for the wealth of garlic information. We will keep it going for the foreseeable future.
We sold certified organic seed garlic grown on our own property. Seed garlic is garlic which has been grown with meticulous attention to quality.
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 we built up our collection until at one point we had about 200 distinct cultivars. We gradually worked it back down to a more manageable number, selling off the ones that were not doing well in our environment. By 2019 we were down to about 40 strains and Henry has kept some 20 for personal use.
Our relationship with garlic transformed into a conscious, mindful partnership. The more carefully we listened, the better we were able to meet the needs of the different garlics and to collaborate with them in their culture and dissemination.
What We Grew
The Canadian climate is particularly well suited to growing true hardneck garlic varieties. We had a large selection of cultivars (strains) of garlic from the five true hardneck varieties which thrive in our cold winters and moderately hot summers. We also had softneck garlics and ‘weakly bolting hardnecks’. For information on the changing face of garlic classification see the article by Bob Anderson on the Garlic Family Tree.
The varieties pages show some of the garlics that were available from each of the five hardneck varieties: Rocambole, Porcelain, Purple Stripe, Marbled Purple Stripe and Glazed Purple Stripe; from the three weakly bolting hardnecks: Asiatic, Creole, and Turban, and from the softneck varieties Artichoke and Silverskin.
Bulbils
We grew many of our strains up originally from bulbils and we refreshed our stock from time to time by growing from bulbils.
Growing bulbils 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 information on growing from bulbils go to
our bulbils page.See also our growing Rocamboles from bulbils page. For more of Henry's pictures of bulbils and
of our experience growing bulbils visit
his photo gallery.
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Bulbils of the Marbled
Purple Stripe,
Khabar |
Bulbils of the Porcelain,
Susan Delafield |
Bulbils of the Rocambole,
Korean Purple |
| want to see
more pics of garlic? visit Henry's
gallery |
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Shopping Cart Closed
Boundary Garlic is sold out for 2019 and we are taking 2020 off from growing garlic commercially.
Resources
Henry and Sonia Have Retired
After growing and selling seed garlic for 17 years Henry and Sonia have retired. This website will remain open as an information resource.
Garlic Family Tree
For more information on the relationships between the garlic varieties see Bob Anderson's The Garlic Family Tree and Where Garlic Came From from the Gourmet Garlic Gardens website.
Garlic for Health
Our friend Lalitha has written an amazing handbook of practical herbal wisdom. 10 Essential Herbs is the herb book I have been waiting for all my life without knowing it. Garlic is, of course, one of the ten essential herbs and many of the others are equally well known, safe and easy to use. Lalitha give clear instructions for how to use them, and when not to, plus lots of ancecdotes from her personal experience that encourage one to begin right away. Order from the author.
Pests and Diseases
Henry has found the University of California at Davis to be an excellent source of information on garlic pests and diseases.
Feature Article
We are delighted to present a fascinating article on True Seeds in Garlic by Dr. Rina Kamenetsky.
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