Moghadam Rocambole Garlic Bulbs *PREORDER*

This product is open for PREORDER ONLY! Garlic bulbs will ship in September 2025. If ordered along with seeds, all items will ship together by the end of September. Please place two separate orders for seeds vs garlic if you'd like to receive your seeds sooner than September!

Moghadam Rocambole garlic was introduced to us by our friend, Iranian American farmer and seed saver, Sasha Moghadam. Rocambole garlic is known for its robust, full-bodied and sweet, earthy flavor with buttery texture. Excellent raw or cooked. A hardneck variety with around 8-10 large cloves per bulb.

This rocambole garlic was stewarded and selected year after year by Sasha's father, Jamshid Moghadam, in Colorado from 1990’s until he passed in 2019, and is now grown by Sasha. Sasha offers:

“I grew up pretty distant from my Iranian heritage and culture. I never really felt at home in myself, and I didn’t have a strong sense of who I was, partly because I didn’t know where I had come from. I only knew half of my story. Our father was in and out of my life, and I was just getting to know him a little more in the years leading up to his death in 2019. Right before he passed, he gave me one of the most beautiful and humble gifts I have received. He sent me a box of seed: Garlic, Persian Leek, and hollyhock that he’d been growing in his Colorado garden for twenty some years.

These seeds were special, and they were a point of entry into our culture and heritage for me. Today, they’re my connection not only to my father, but to those who tended the seeds before him. They held the stories untold, and through them I had a point of connection – not only to resurrect the culture that I had been disconnected from, but to connect me to a community that I had never been a part of.

When I grew Moghadam Rocambole first, I started with less than a dozen bulbs and for the last eight years I have built that seed stock up to where it is now. This is the first year I have enough seed to share with other garlic growers and I’m taking a leap of faith, having a good crack at growing garlic as my full time job. I feel like this garlic holds all of my father’s secrets-the ones he could not confide in with son, or daughter, or wife, or friend, the garlic knows. Every season, these bulbs tells me, with discernment, just enough. They remind me of who I am, where I’ve come from, and where I am going. For many days and many years I have communed with this garlic- cracked cloves, planted them, weeded them, harvested them every summer, hung them to dry. Wherever I have buried my plow, this garlic called home. These cloves have heard my screams, my cries, my laughter, my joy, and my prayers. They too know all of my secrets, and one day, so long as I keep up my end of the deal they will do for me what they did for my father: They will share with my kin, the stories that go untold.”

Days to maturity: Overwinter, harvest following summer

Garlic Bulbs per pack: Roughly 6 bulbs/1 lb bag

Planting / harvesting notes

When you receive your garlic, store it in a cool, dry, dark place. Do not store it in a plastic bag or anywhere that moisture would be likely to build on it. Wait to crack the bulbs into individual cloves until a day or two before planting. Plant your garlic 2-4 weeks before the ground freezes solid. Gently crack the individual cloves off of the bulbs, doing your best to leave the basil plate (roots) intact. It is not necessary or advised to peel wrapper off of the individual cloves.

Plant each clove, root end down, two inches deep. Space your cloves 6-8 inches apart in rows 6-12 inches apart. Plant your garlic into a bed rich with nitrogen (be it compost, manure, fish fertilizer, or aged chicken manure,) and agricultural lime. Garlic prefers full-sun and  rich, well drained, soil. If you live in a wet area it is advised to plant your garlic on ridges or raised beds. Garlic, especially rocambole varieties, are susceptible to “wet feet” and will do a lot better if grown high and dry.

Once your garlic is planted you can mulch it with a few inches of straw, alfalfa, or compost. Make sure not to mulch too heavy or the garlic may have a hard time growing through the mulch. Provide additional nitrogen in the early spring and water as needed ( 2-4 times a week.) 2-3 weeks before harvest, cut off the water completely and let the bulbs dry out. You want to harvest the garlic with very little moisture in the soil.

Hard neck varieties will also shoot out a flower stalk called a scape, a few weeks before the bulbs are ready to harvest. Remove the scape after it makes its first curl. Do not pull the scape, but rather cut it,  2 inches about the top leaf. Removing the scape will put more energy into the growth of the bulb and you will get a generally larger bulb this way. The scapes are also delicious to eat!

Harvest your garlic (generally in late June -late July) when you have 4-5 green leaves left on the top of the plant, and the lower 50% of the leaves are brown and completely dried down. Hang and dry the bulbs in bunches of 7-10 plants, for 3-4 weeks. Make sure they are hanging in a well ventilated area, out of the sunlight, and with no chance of rain getting on them. Once the bulbs have cured for 3-4 weeks you can trim off the roots and cut the necks to 1/2 inch above the tope of the bulb. Store the bulbs in vented crates or baskets, ideally 55-65 degrees and 45%-60% humidity.

Seed keeping notes

Once harvested and cured, select large, appealing, firm garlic bulbs to save for seed garlic. Avoid damaged bulbs, blemishes, mold or discoloring. Replant garlic cloves in late Autumn to overwinter for following year!