Garlic Bulbs

The traded unit is the intact head. Inside it, cloves are arranged around the remains of the stem: in hardneck garlic around a stiff central stalk, in softneck garlic in overlapping layers with no rigid core. The distinction is commercial as well as botanical — softneck types are generally the longer-storing, machine-friendlier garlic of large-scale trade and the type that can be braided, while hardnecks are traded as a shorter-storing specialty with fewer, larger cloves.

Wrapper

The shared papery leaves enclosing the whole head. They hold the cloves together, limit water loss, and are the single most visible grading attribute.

Clove

An individual bulblet with its own skin. The head is sold whole but consumed clove by clove, so cloves that shed or loosen degrade the lot.

Compactness

How tightly the cloves are held on the basal plate. A loose head breaks apart in handling and is downgraded.

Garlic is lifted when the lower leaves have dried down but enough green remains above — a narrower window than most vegetables allow. Lift too early and the cloves are not filled and the wrappers are thin; leave it too late and the wrappers deteriorate in the soil and the head begins to split open, exposing bare cloves. A split, bare-cloved head is not a cosmetic problem: it has lost its packaging.

Curing then dries the neck, the roots, and the outer wrappers, sealing the head and setting the skins that protect it. It is done in the field where the climate is dry enough, or under forced air where it is not, and it takes garlic longer than onions because the neck is denser and the head has more wrapper to dry through. Only after curing are the tops and roots trimmed back and the bulbs graded and packed — cutting a wet neck simply opens a wound into the head.

Garlic is graded on head size and uniformity, compactness, wrapper condition and whiteness, freedom from sprouting and mould, and the absence of loose or missing cloves. Buyers also care about clove count and size, since a head of a few large cloves and a head of many small ones serve different kitchens even at identical weight. Wrapper condition dominates the visual assessment because it is simultaneously what the buyer sees and what protects the goods.

• Split heads and exposed or loose cloves
• Wrapper damage, staining, and discoloration
• Sprouting — green shoots emerging as dormancy breaks
• Rooting from the basal plate in store
• Blue and green moulds on damaged or poorly cured heads
• Shrivelled or dehydrated cloves from excessive water loss
• Mechanical damage from over-aggressive trimming or handling

Sprouting is the defect that ends the commercial life of most garlic lots. It is a dormancy break rather than a disease, and once it starts the clove diverts its reserves into the shoot and both texture and flavour go with them. Grade standards and size classes are jurisdictional and revised, so the edition in force governs.

Cured garlic is held as a dormant organ, and the storage objective is to keep it that way: dry, ventilated, and at a temperature that does not encourage the bulb to wake up. Garlic is not chilling-sensitive and tolerates cold holding, but the relationship between temperature and sprouting is not a simple downward slope — intermediate temperatures can actively promote sprouting, which is why garlic storage regimes are chosen deliberately from sourced guidance rather than by defaulting to "as cold as possible" or "cool enough".

Garlic reaches market as whole cured heads above all, and also as peeled cloves, which are a fresh-cut product: peeling removes the protection that curing built, so peeled garlic is perishable in a way whole heads are not and must be refrigerated or otherwise preserved. It ships in cartons, nets, and crates, ventilated rather than sealed, and travels well when the wrappers are intact.