Monday, July 23, 2018

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!

16 comments:

  1. Beautiful garlic! Lots of great flavor in there. Cleaning the garlic for storage is one of my most favorite annual chores. Well Done!
    Isn't it hard to set aside the best ones to plant for next year's crop?

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    1. Thanks. That's so funny, 2nd Man said the same thing when he saw the basket when I was done, "there's a lot of flavor in there!".

      Yep, putting a few aside, though I may order seed garlic too.

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  2. What lovely looking heads you have and will taste so much better cause you grew them yourself. Great job. Sounds like you had a beautiful day to do that. We had nothing but dead air here yesterday and again today. It's 10:00 at the moment and it's already close to the mid 90's.
    You can also freeze garlic if you so desire. https://www.hgtv.com/outdoors/gardens/garden-to-table/can-you-freeze-garlic-cloves

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    1. Thank you, yep, your own is always the best isn't it? Ha. It's so hot. Ugh.

      Thanks for the info about freezing...I will read up on that.

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  3. Hahahaha I almost spewed my coffee when I scrolled down and saw the shark head.
    I think it is wonderful that you grew your own garlic. Have you read how much perfectly good produce is tossed away in the U.S. because it is not pretty? The beauty of minced garlic is completely irrelevant to my mouth.

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    1. Ha! Watch tomorrow (and the rest of this week, some more sightings!). I just watched a documentary segment on a show about the "imperfect" food. It was shocking!! And yep, garlic is WONDERFUL.

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  4. I have fond memories of doing that. you may be able to save some to plant next Fall. you did great despite having to look over shoulder for a shark preparing to attack!

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    1. Going to try to save some. Or maybe order seed garlic again ha. And yes, I worked fast to avoid the shark, ha

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  5. Well done on the garlic!!! Apparently your farm shark doesn't moonlight as a vampire. :-) Great post!

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    1. So true, no vampire sharks here!!! thanks for the kind words!

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  6. I hope the farm shark doesn't like garlic!

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  7. I don't judge you for the rocking chair, I'm jealous as all get out. I also think it is so cool that you did your own garlic from beginning to end probably jealous about that too. Not even going to mention the scary shark picture.

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    Replies
    1. I hear ya. You know the rocking chair well, been there done that! It is kind of cool to know we did it from beginning to end (finally!). Hugs!!

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  8. Very informative post, thanks for sharing. Your garlic is beautiful.

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    Replies
    1. Aww, thanks for that. We learn, we share. ha.

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