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Q. Mike: Thanks to your tips, we harvested a bumper crop of garlic; a nice big bulb for every clove we planted! But there are only two of us who use garlic; how do we keep our harvest fresh over the next few months?
I only harvest as much at one time as I can fit single file on a big table on our porch with a ceiling fan right over the table. “Curing” the garlic out of the sun and in a constant breeze really improves the flavor and ‘keeping’ quality; I’d rather leave some plants in the ground a little longer than rush this step. After five to ten days, I move the cured bulbs inside and harvest more to refill the table. I (gently!) rub any remaining dirt off the cured bulbs, trim the roots and tops back and examine each head carefully.
Bulbs with any damage, like a visibly bad clove or burst wrapper, get pulled apart and the cloves processed into garlic powder (or otherwise used in the kitchen) right away. Big, fat perfect heads that contain only big fat perfect cloves get hung in a cool airy place in old onion bags. My experience is that these heads will keep well—that is, not begin to sprout—until Thanksgiving or so. But before that, I’ll gently break them all open, searching for the biggest cloves for replanting, which I’ll do throughout the month of September. The remainder will be made into more garlic powder, which for my money (or lack thereof) is the best way to store the bulk of the harvest over winter.
Q. Mike: I've heard you mention making garlic powder. Could you provide the details?
Then I run the dried pieces through a ‘coffee grinder’ that I only use for this purpose (a little twenty dollar coffee bean grinding machine does the job better than an expensive food processor!) and pour the powder into old spice jars with shaker caps that I’ve saved, each containing a little desiccating pouch saved from a bottle of vitamins. That’s right—I don’t throw ANYTHING away! (So please don’t look at our basement. Or open any closets. Or...)
I label the jars and store them, tightly lidded, in a cool, dry place. The flavor is much better and more pungent than any garlic powder you can buy in a store, and a well-stored jar will retain that amazing flavor for a year or more. If you grow lots of garlic, make lots of powder—it makes a much-appreciated holiday gift! If you DON’T grow lots of garlic, start to!
Q. We followed your advice and planted garlic last fall. You’re right; the flavor is much better than supermarket garlic! Now—we’ve heard you mention that every year the garlic will improve as it adjusts our soil conditions. We want to plant more this fall. Do we need to save any of this year’s harvest to do so?
This is one of the most important benefits of ‘seed saving’ in general. By saving fresh seed (or cloves, in this case) and growing the plants in the same garden year after year, you create your own locally adapted variety.
Q. We’ve grown garlic for years using cloves saved from the previous year's harvest, but we have never tried growing it from ‘seed’—the little kernels that develop inside the garlic ‘scapes’ that form on top of some varieties. We know you’re supposed to cut those scapes off to try and increase the size of the bulb underground, but we missed a few this year and want to try planting the seeds. Any ideas, suggestions or other bits of wisdom would be greatly appreciated.
However, I was just discussing this topic with some West Coast growers at the Seed Savers Exchange conference in Iowa this July, and they told me that their saved ‘seeds’ instead produced tiny heads with multiple mini-cloves inside, which I find much less interesting (and much less useful).
But they tend to grow softneck varieties in CA and other warmer-winter regions, while I grow hardneck varieties in my Pennsylvania garden. Softneck garlic typically stores much longer without sprouting—it’s the type you’ll find in most supermarkets—while my hardnecks (which I often call ‘Northern garlics’) are the preferred type for growing in cold winter climes. (And I think they have a deeper range of flavors.)
So the results of this experiment may be variety and/or winter weather dependant. Give it a try and let me know what YOU get!
Helpful Products from Gardens Alive!
Garlic Baker - This attractive, 2-piece stoneware baker is perfectly shaped to roast an entire head of garlic, creating a tasty (and healthy) treat.
Compost Digester – Compost is one of the very best things you can put in your garden. With this compact bin you can turn your fall leaves and kitchen scraps into valuable “black gold”!
Granulated WOW!® Pre-Emergence Weed Control - Wow is the natural way to “weed and feed” your lawn. Derived from corn gluten meal, Wow controls weeds before they emerge, and provides a gentle balanced feeding at the same time.
- ---Betty in Glenside PA
I only harvest as much at one time as I can fit single file on a big table on our porch with a ceiling fan right over the table. “Curing” the garlic out of the sun and in a constant breeze really improves the flavor and ‘keeping’ quality; I’d rather leave some plants in the ground a little longer than rush this step. After five to ten days, I move the cured bulbs inside and harvest more to refill the table. I (gently!) rub any remaining dirt off the cured bulbs, trim the roots and tops back and examine each head carefully.
Bulbs with any damage, like a visibly bad clove or burst wrapper, get pulled apart and the cloves processed into garlic powder (or otherwise used in the kitchen) right away. Big, fat perfect heads that contain only big fat perfect cloves get hung in a cool airy place in old onion bags. My experience is that these heads will keep well—that is, not begin to sprout—until Thanksgiving or so. But before that, I’ll gently break them all open, searching for the biggest cloves for replanting, which I’ll do throughout the month of September. The remainder will be made into more garlic powder, which for my money (or lack thereof) is the best way to store the bulk of the harvest over winter.
Q. Mike: I've heard you mention making garlic powder. Could you provide the details?
- ---Kim in Beavercreek, Ohio
Then I run the dried pieces through a ‘coffee grinder’ that I only use for this purpose (a little twenty dollar coffee bean grinding machine does the job better than an expensive food processor!) and pour the powder into old spice jars with shaker caps that I’ve saved, each containing a little desiccating pouch saved from a bottle of vitamins. That’s right—I don’t throw ANYTHING away! (So please don’t look at our basement. Or open any closets. Or...)
I label the jars and store them, tightly lidded, in a cool, dry place. The flavor is much better and more pungent than any garlic powder you can buy in a store, and a well-stored jar will retain that amazing flavor for a year or more. If you grow lots of garlic, make lots of powder—it makes a much-appreciated holiday gift! If you DON’T grow lots of garlic, start to!
Q. We followed your advice and planted garlic last fall. You’re right; the flavor is much better than supermarket garlic! Now—we’ve heard you mention that every year the garlic will improve as it adjusts our soil conditions. We want to plant more this fall. Do we need to save any of this year’s harvest to do so?
- ---LeeAnn in Burlington, NJ
This is one of the most important benefits of ‘seed saving’ in general. By saving fresh seed (or cloves, in this case) and growing the plants in the same garden year after year, you create your own locally adapted variety.
Q. We’ve grown garlic for years using cloves saved from the previous year's harvest, but we have never tried growing it from ‘seed’—the little kernels that develop inside the garlic ‘scapes’ that form on top of some varieties. We know you’re supposed to cut those scapes off to try and increase the size of the bulb underground, but we missed a few this year and want to try planting the seeds. Any ideas, suggestions or other bits of wisdom would be greatly appreciated.
- ---Tom and Liane in Rhoadesville, VA
However, I was just discussing this topic with some West Coast growers at the Seed Savers Exchange conference in Iowa this July, and they told me that their saved ‘seeds’ instead produced tiny heads with multiple mini-cloves inside, which I find much less interesting (and much less useful).
But they tend to grow softneck varieties in CA and other warmer-winter regions, while I grow hardneck varieties in my Pennsylvania garden. Softneck garlic typically stores much longer without sprouting—it’s the type you’ll find in most supermarkets—while my hardnecks (which I often call ‘Northern garlics’) are the preferred type for growing in cold winter climes. (And I think they have a deeper range of flavors.)
So the results of this experiment may be variety and/or winter weather dependant. Give it a try and let me know what YOU get!
Helpful Products from Gardens Alive!
Garlic Baker - This attractive, 2-piece stoneware baker is perfectly shaped to roast an entire head of garlic, creating a tasty (and healthy) treat.
Compost Digester – Compost is one of the very best things you can put in your garden. With this compact bin you can turn your fall leaves and kitchen scraps into valuable “black gold”!
Granulated WOW!® Pre-Emergence Weed Control - Wow is the natural way to “weed and feed” your lawn. Derived from corn gluten meal, Wow controls weeds before they emerge, and provides a gentle balanced feeding at the same time.
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