Why Are My Garlic Cloves So Tiny?

So there you are, standing in front of your cutting board, ready to mince the hell out of some garlic. You peel back the layers only to find a bunch of miniscule baby cloves. Perhaps a wave of disappointment or confusion washes over you at the sight–is there something wrong with this garlic?  It’s likely that you’ve come across heads of garlic that have very large cloves, while others have many tiny cloves that are packed tightly in the bulb. But, it turns out the size of the garlic clove you end up with isn’t random at all.

What's That Green Stuff Inside My Garlic?

The Two Types of Garlic

There are two types of garlic: softneck and hardneck. “The ‘neck’ in each term refers to the stem (or stalk) and whether the species produces a flower (with seeds) or not,” explains Karen Gibson, Master Gardener and Owner of SproutedGarden. 

Hardneck garlic has fewer, larger cloves. “Hardneck garlic bulbs have one row of cloves surrounding the central stalk,” says Gibson. Hardnecks have a firm stalk, known as a scape which produces a flower at the tip. “This scape is an edible delicacy, and garlic growers remove it before the flower forms in the spring to use in cooking, much like a green onion,” says Gibson. 

Softneck garlic, on the other hand, has an abundance of tiny cloves.  “Grocery store garlic is almost always softneck garlic because it better withstands the rigors of shipping and stores longer than hardnecks,” says Gibson.

The Benefits of Tiny Garlic Cloves

Many recipes don’t distinguish between using softneck (small cloves) or hardneck (large cloves) varieties of garlic. This can create confusion since a recipe might only specify the amount of cloves, but not the size. “Just keep the size in mind as most recipes just count cloves but don't account for weight,” says Executive Chef Bin Lu, of Blue Rock, in Washington, VA. Smaller cloves means you may have more garlic to peel. 

Small and tiny cloves do have an advantage for some recipes. “They're convenient for recipes that call for just a small amount of garlic, such as salad dressings or sauces where you only need a 1/2 teaspoon or so,” explains Gibson.

How To Spot The Difference Between Types of Garlic

The benefit of buying directly from a farmer is you can also simply ask about the type and garlic variety. “It's pretty difficult (to see the difference) once they're trimmed (and) in the store,” says Lu. Shopping for garlic at a farmers market is not always a guarantee that it will be obvious or easy to distinguish between the two types, but there are some clues. 

“If the seller has left a stub of the plant stem on the top of the bulb…the stem of soft neck garlic will be pliable, whereas a hardneck bulb will be quite solid like a pencil sticking out of the bulb,” says Gibson.  

Another clue is picking up the bulb and checking for the size of the cloves. “Some hardneck varieties produce very large cloves, and so the bulb might have just 5 or 6 cloves total, which you can feel by handling the bulb, whereas softnecks can have a dozen or more small cloves,” says Gibson.