Garlic Harvest

Continuing with the garlic theme, although this will be the last post until it's time to plant again. We'll have grapes to talk about soon. We harvested each of the four types of garlic, pickled some that day, and tied the rest in bundles in the tool shed to cure. This picture was taken the day we harvested.

After hanging like this for two weeks, the tops are mostly brown but still not completely dry. Another week or two should do it. We made pizza sauce with tomatoes and onions from the garden yesterday, along with two bunches of this garlic roasted in olive oil, and a bit of fresh basil. It made the best pizza sauce we have ever bottled! We also bottled a batch of salsa last week using the fresh garlic, onions, and tomatoes. We did have to purchase peppers this year but that was it.

We grew four varieties of garlic. In the background of the picture (click on it for a larger view) is regular garlic we actually purchased at the grocery store last fall and planted. On the left is elephant garlic, which isn't really a garlic at all but more like a leek with a large clove. On the right are two varieties of garlic from Germany and Italy. One is extra hardy and the other is supposed to have a hot flavor (salsa anyone??). These last two did not grow as large as the others so we're saving them and will re-plant early this fall to see if they do better. One last thing - the little tan nodes on the elephant garlic are supposed to grow a single very large clove the first year, and then divide into a bunch the second year. I can't wait to plant these!