Garlic - It is a long complicated affair

One of the things we have been most excited about growing on our farm is GARLIC! It is something that you plant in the fall, overwinter, and harvest in the late summer. Garlic is something that takes about 8-9 months to grow. For us, harvest came early this year because we notice its leaves were browning, scapes were flowering it's stalks were leaning over - the tell-tale signs that garlic is ready to come out of the ground.  Since we had such a mild winter, we think that the garlic got a jump-start on growing during what was suppose to be the cold months.

Since this is our first year growing garlic, we are learning as we go. We had no idea that garlic plants send up a garlic scape - or a tall, slender stalk with an intense garlic that grows out of the middle of the garlic leaves and has a bulb that flowers. They are beautiful and can be used in cooking. They have an intense garlic flavor and can be used in stir-fry or pesto. Or, they can be left in a vase to flower and they create a huge purple bloom - only this bouquet has a distinct garlic odor.

When to harvest garlic is a judgment call, but basically it’s ready to go when the lower leaves start to brown or the stem starts to lean over. Harvesting too soon will result in smaller cloves that don’t store well. Leaving the bulbs in the ground too long and the cloves may be bursting out of their skins, making them unstorable and open to disease. We harvested a few to see if they were ready in early June and sure enough. They were!

We found that digging the garlic out is difficult. Since the bulbs were several inches down in the soil and developed a strong root system, we could not just pull them out. We used a small shovel to loosen the dirt around the bulbs and then dug underneath the bulbs to pop them out. We had to be very careful not to hit or slice the bulb with the small shovel because it wouldn't be able to be stored with a slice through it.

After all that waiting for it to grow and the effort it takes to dig them up, we still have to wait to actually use the garlic! I never knew that garlic has to "cure," or dry, for three to four weeks after harvesting it. We are curing it in a well-ventilated and dry, shady place. After that month, we can go crazy with all of our garlic recipes and we can store the garlic for about 7-8 months as long as we keep it in cool place at about 32°F.