Garlic Forever

/ lizbaessler

I harvested my garlic a month ago, and since then it’s been dangling from strings wherever I could find space in the basement.

It’s time to consolidate.

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I hung the whole plants, bulbs down, in three bundles spaced loosely enough to allow good airflow. Since the plants are good and dry now, I can cut the bulbs away. I just snipped through the stalks  with a pair of scissors about an inch above the bulbs.

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I also trimmed off the excess roots, mostly for aesthetics and to keep the bulbs from tangling with each other.

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Here they are nicely shorn.

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Last summer I harvested about half a dozen bubs. If I keep expanding at this rate I can go into production soon.

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I’m not going into production yet. (I’m not even sharing with my housemates!) But I do want my garlic looking its best. I gently peeled off the outer, dirty layer of papery skin.

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And that’s it! I tucked them an old mesh onion bag and hung them from a nail in a dark alcove of the cellar. Last year’s garlic lasted all winter like that, so I have high hopes. Around Halloween I’ll break up one or two and plant the cloves – I’m excited to get a multi-generational crop and finally become garlic self-sufficient.

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I’m using “self-sufficient” very loosely. There’s no way this is lasting a year.

7 thoughts on “Garlic Forever”

    • Thanks! It’s so easy, as long as you’re patient. Timing depends upon where you live, but if your ground freezes in the fall you want to plant it soon before that. (Around Halloween here in southern New England). Separate the bulb and plant each clove in its own hole with the pointy end facing up. Get farmers’ market garlic if you can – the store bought stuff is usually sprayed with chemicals to keep it from sprouting. Once it’s in the ground you can forget about it until the summer.

      Oh, and the spring shoots are tough as nails. I learned from experience when mine came up in a warm spell in January and then got snowed on and frozen in February. They didn’t even notice!

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      • No problem! Thank YOU for stopping by!

        One more garlic secret – in early summer they send up scapes (pointy curlicue shoots). A scape will turn into a flower if you leave it, but if you cut it off the plant reroutes all that flower energy to the bulb (which is good) and you get to eat the scape (which is extra good).

        I feel like garlic scapes were all the rage this summer, but maybe I was just paying closer attention because I had so many.

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    • Thanks! Oh man, it’s hard to pick a favorite dish, since just about everything I cook gets a heavy garlicking. One big standout is pesto. The basil crop is getting away from us (we were out of town when it hit its peak), so we’ll have to do it soon! It takes a lot of garlic, though. I’ll have decide if I’m willing to donate my hard-won cloves to the cause…

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