CLEANING THE GARLIC FOR STORAGE

(As promised, Farm Shark sighting pic at end of post)

Where's the garlic that has been hanging in the barn for the last six weeks?  

Here it is!  I cut it all down and brought it up onto the porch where it was about 20 degrees cooler and breezy, which made for a nice time to do it.

Each head is dry and still covered with the dirty outer layers.  I just did them one at a time. 

I cut off the neck a few inches above the head.  This releases the papery layers and makes peeling them so much easier.  I also trimmed the roots.  

You simply grab a head and sort of just start rubbing your hands around it and the outer layers start to flake off.  You can tell when you get down to the tighter inside layers where they don't want to release.  That's when you stop.  

You are left with the type of head you might see at the grocery store. 

It's messy of course so don't do it indoors. Bonus for being outside, the breeze blows most everything away when you are done, so there is that.

I can say that I was in heaven while I was doing it, sitting on the porch in a rocking chair (hey don't judge!) with only a cool breeze and the wind chimes singing gently.  It felt right. 

Here is the basket when I was done.  

When we got back into town, I sorted through all of them and these are the oddly shaped heads and the cloves that broke off onto their own.

These were what we call the "store ready heads".  Almost a dozen.  Actually if you count the two heads we've already brought home and used, we got a little over a dozen perfect heads.  We'll keep a few in a garlic jar on the counter and the rest of them stored in paper bags in the pantry. They like dark and dry.

They may not all be the prettiest but you know what?  They are ours.  We grew them from single cloves.  Just 15 minutes of work planting them, regular watering and we ended up with these. 

Nothing wrong with that.

And now...

While sitting on the porch working on the garlic, we both saw the dreaded Farm Shark!

HAPPY SHARK WEEK!