As you may know, elephant garlic is not a true garlic; it a leek.Many people think of it as garlic so we grow it. All true garlic species are botanically classified as Allium Sativum and elephant garlic is Allium Ampeloprasum, formerly Allium Gigantum.

Elephant garlic can store for about a year at room temp - wow!

Large elephant garlic is about twice the size of the largest real garlics or larger and has a milder taste but with a sharp onion-like edge to it and a distinctive aftertaste. They average five monstrously large cloves that are somewhat yellowish compared the milky whiteness of true garlic cloves. It also has far less allicin potential than real garlic but grows extremely clean and disease free and does not seem to be bothered by insects. In our experience, it stores very hard and clean much longer than real garlic (even when separated into individual cloves, it will store about a year at room temp).

Unlike real garlic it produces bottom bulbils called corms that have very hard shells with sharp pointed tops and they store even longer than the bulbs. The corms are attached to the bottoms of the bulbs but grow up their sides and are often incorporated into the bulb wrappers several layers deep. The bulb wrappers on elephant garlic are extremely white and they cure out to be very thin and flaky and are intact only on freshly harvested bulbs. After a few months they seem to evaporate, leaving bare or almost bare bulbs that have a rather rough look but it does not seem to affect their storability much, only their attractiveness.