Without a scape, all the plant's energies can go toward producing large, beautiful bulbs. And perhaps more importantly, the soft, pliable pseudostem allows commercial farmers to use machinery when planting since the clove can be plopped in the ground without consideration of orientation; upside-down, sideways... it simply doesn't matter. Nearly all commercial garlic, be it from Gilroy, California or China or wherever, is softneck. Given the huge variety of rich and exciting garlic in the world, this is a little on the boring side; but it makes it possible to have as much garlic in the world as we do... 22,280,000 tons in 2009. Imagine planting that by hand!

On the Tongue

Despite the market being flooded with only a very few (two in the U.S; California Early and California Late) variety of Artichokes, there are a great many out there to experiment with. Ted Jordan Meredith has this to say, "At their worst, Artichoke cultivars can taste simple and vegetative. The best, however, have very good flavor. Broadly speaking, they may not have the rich, sweet depth of the best Rocambole cultivars, or the complex flavor intensity of Purple Stripe cultivars, but at their best they offer fairly complex, milder, more high-toned flavors of their own."

In the Field

The plants are shorter than hardneck varieties, probably because the soft pseudostem would be incapable of supporting a taller plant. But don't let the height fool you, large bulbs, in the three inch range, are common. The cloves form in multiple layers around the center of the bulb, with many small cloves clustered in the middle. This can make peeling a a bit tedious if you're preparing a meal for twenty, but it benefits the cook preparing a dish for two. Bulbils can form but not atop a scape; when present they are found right within the pseudostem, usually near the base just above the bulb.