Garlic suggestions and advice needed

We own a small holding in the West Midlands and wanted to allocate a 9mx9m area to grow garlic, with the intention of selling it next year to the public or restaurants, so we would like to grow a heritage/gourmet variety.



Our soil is well drained and alkaline, but is a heavy-ish clay.



Having never grown garlic before, can we please get some suggestions on potential varieties?



Many thanks in advance for your insights and advice.

 

Worth checking these guys out. Their website seems to be a bit intermittent today.

www.thegarlicfarm.co.uk/buy/garlic-for-growing

I've been growing winter garlic for the last two years with great success. If I remember correctly I grew early purple white and red duke white this year. Soil conditions similar sounding to yours. The early purples were huge this year and the red duke which I have not fully harvested yet produced very attractive bulbs.

I've read that garlic is a good companion plant so I mixed mine with other crops and also planted them around the base of my fruit trees.

For me it is a really easy crop to grow. Despite living in Scotland it's survived the bad weather, doesn't seem to get attacked by insects and seems very reliable.

 

I bought some garlic from that place on the IOW last year, results have been probably the best I've had.
Can't remember which varieties I bought, I bought a white variety and a red, the red has done best in my mostly clay soil, planted in late september.

Looking again, it was probably the early purple variety.

 

Years ago, I got some Garlic from the Garlic Farm. I forget which varieties for sure now, but one was probably ‘Solent White’. From memory, they performed very well.