Italian Purple
Last updated on Jul 15, 2024 by Ben Ronniger
Italian Purple (softneck variety) has long been a gardeners favorite because it is an early harvesting, richly flavored light-to medium pungency garlic that has a lot of color and grows almost anywhere. That's a lot to like in a garlic that when properly grown and stored will keep through the winter. After a few months of having no garlic, Italian Purple gave gardeners an excellent garlic weeks before most other varieties and it is a prolific grower and a good commercial garlic. It matures after the mild Red Toch and before Inchelium Red, which is a little stronger most years. It does seem to tolerate hot spring weather well and stores well also.
Italian Purple ranks 4-5 on the garlickiness scale and 3-4 on the pungency side. It has a semi-rich flavor and a little bite, but is still on the light side.
The difference healthy soil and careful handling makes is phenomenal in all garlics. When grown and harvested properly, Italian Purple is an excellent all- around general use garlic and an excellent baker. It's a very good growers garlic as it has many large cloves and it stores well under proper conditions.
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