Preserving

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Garlic Planted.....finally!!

Well, I finally got the garlic planted this morning! It rained all day yesterday.....so, I did some canning and cleaning. I usually plant my garlic in September or earlier in October. But, it's planted now and mulched with straw for the winter.

Here's the garlic planted and mulched between the remaining leeks, mustard greens, peas and brussel sprouts. I planted about 65 cloves this year.

When I went down in to the basement to get garlic to plant, I found that the Spanish Roja garlic is not storing very well. Quite a few of the heads are drying up. Last year was the first year I planted this variety. It produced nice big heads and has a flavor that we like. However, since it is not storing well. I did not plant it again.

As you can see, the other garlic is storing quite well.
This is how I store my garlic for the year. I hang it from the rafters in the basement and cover it with brown paper bags. This method of storage has been working very well for me. In the past we always have enough garlic to last us throughout the year.


4 comments:

  1. I store mine in a mesh back or a braid - either of which is then hung from the rafters like yours to encourage air circulation. I am curious why you use the bags?

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  2. Laura, I place the bags over them to keep the sunlight coming in from the basement window off of them. I have always done that with the onions and when I started growing garlic I just did the same thing. I'm not sure if they need the protection. I just assumed they did.

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  3. It all looks so good. I still need to get my garlic in....hopefully this week.

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  4. Good luck with the garlics. Only half of what we planted last autumn survived the amount of rain that we got this year. Hopefully it will be big as yours when we harvest them about Christmas time.

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