But even if chefs & foodies couldn’t, it’s nutters advice to folks who wantto grow some of their own foodsuccessfully enough to get to eat some of that food, ideally over the whole of the year. Different varieties of garlic -- of every plant -- have been grown & bred over millenia with an artful + scientific eye to: slightly different conditions of soil, size, weather, seasonality, humidity, pest resistance, beauty, storagecapacity, crunchiness. This massive,natural diversity –where it still exists -- is crucial to the on-going vitality of crops, and thus to our eating and nutrition. seed garlic attests to the wild proliferative nature of nature. But it is never just about ushumans: about our eating and nutrition. Other elements in an ecosystem, even a small one like a backyard garden plot, need to eat and be nourished by what they eat. Countless other beings come to exist in relationships with the plants we plant; with the microbiology in the water, soil and air, and thus with insects, shrubs, trees, birds, small mammals, amphibians and rodents who also live in and around our backyards. Surely those relationships amongst all the elements are also stronger and weaker depending on a myriad offactors, factors.