Last night Dan and I harvested all of the garlic that we planted at Spring Wind Farm last fall. We both had a long day and weren't able to get out there until about 8:30 but it was just wonderful harvesting while the sun was setting (and it was fairly cool outside! Quite nice after our heat wave). Dan's older brother, Alec, also helped out and we sent him home with a nice bundle of garlic. We then drove back home and bundled up our garlic in the driveway under our outdoor sensored light (so every 5 minutes one of us had to run up to light and wildly wave our hands to get it back on...) Then we hung it all up in the rafters of our basement. The garlic has to hang and essentially "cure" for several weeks, they will then be dried out and can be stored through the fall, winter, and possibly next spring. In the meantime, I've brought several bulbs in and we're eating them "green", so they're not dried out yet but extra pungent and delicious.
We planted a lot! There's probably 150-200 bulbs hanging in our basement right now. There's three varieties, one is a mystery variety that we had growing out at our farm last year, we saved a lot and planted these. (Each clove from a garlic bulb will produce a new garlic bulb, our garlic last year was small-medium sized so we planted these cloves and this year they're medium-large sized, we'll keep doing this year after year and our bulbs will increase in size slightly each year). The other two varieties we didn't plant quite as much of because I purchased these (& garlic is expensive!), the varieties are Cherokee Purple and Tzan. The Tzan is a "softneck" variety and after they've hung I'm going to clean them up and experiment with braiding them, I'll post the process in about a month. If these varieties are tasty we will save some bulbs and plant their cloves this fall to continue the harvest and save our seeds.
We planted a lot! There's probably 150-200 bulbs hanging in our basement right now. There's three varieties, one is a mystery variety that we had growing out at our farm last year, we saved a lot and planted these. (Each clove from a garlic bulb will produce a new garlic bulb, our garlic last year was small-medium sized so we planted these cloves and this year they're medium-large sized, we'll keep doing this year after year and our bulbs will increase in size slightly each year). The other two varieties we didn't plant quite as much of because I purchased these (& garlic is expensive!), the varieties are Cherokee Purple and Tzan. The Tzan is a "softneck" variety and after they've hung I'm going to clean them up and experiment with braiding them, I'll post the process in about a month. If these varieties are tasty we will save some bulbs and plant their cloves this fall to continue the harvest and save our seeds.
Oh, and here's some pretty carrots I just picked from the garden! We're going to have steak with carrots, potatoes, and parsley for supper, can't wait....