Garlic Harvest: 2017

When green garlic leaves fade to brown, it's time to harvest them. It's important to get them out of the ground before tops get too weak to help pull the roots out. Also, as the leaves fade, organisms start eating away the membranes that cover the cloves, exposing these gems to soil. Although dirt readily washes off, bulbs are much fancier wrapped in colorful membrane layers. Also, it's only possible to braid garlic together if the leaves are strongly attached.

Garlic Bed with Parsley Growing Between Rows

Another View Showing Green Garlic Leaves Turning Brown

This year it took six hours to collect about 200 pounds of garlic and stack them exposed to air to cure them. The bulbs must be oriented separately from the leaves so they dry quickly without starting to make "compost". Our new wagon seems to be an ideal tool for curing because the mesh bed allows air to circulate.

Wagon Full of Garlic, Stacked So Bulbs Are Exposed to Air

Knowing that garlic is harvested before the end of July, in early June I broadcast parsley seeds all over the garlic patch. It's now growing very well and by September will be ready for freezing packets of parsley pesto. Last fall the garlic was planted through inches of leaves and other mulch. This spring, some garlic sprouts needed help getting through the larger leaves. Today the mulch has disappeared, processed away primarily by worms, but there was enough left in June to successfully germinate parsley seeds.

Parsley Now Without Competition from Garlic

This year has been cool and wet so garlic scapes didn't appear until later in June. We picked them as soon as they appeared so that the plants' energy goes into the cloves.

Fifteen Pounds of Scapes from the Above Garlic Bed

Planting Garlic

I have been too busy to get our garlic in the ground before my target date: October 31. In September, a family member helped separate the best 350 cloves from heads but they sat in a carton waiting to complete harvesting, a birthday celebration, a hike and a quick visit to both west coast daughters. A dear friend planted almost half while we were away for two weeks that enabled me to plant the rest in only a few hours.

Garlic Cloves Going into Rows with Hay Fork, Bucket for Worms and Carton of Separated Cloves

My favorite tool for planting is a hay fork because its skinny tines slip so easily in our soft soil and don't often hurt the worms that are so plentiful. Most of the worms, grubs and caterpillars end up in a pail for transport to the chickens and Guinea fowl. The garlic beds get covered with a few inches of ground up leaves and grass for insulation and weed/moisture control. By next June, most of this organic matter will have been processed by worms so that the bed is ready for parsley seeds.

Processing Garlic Scapes

In June, hardneck garlic produce scapes, flower "buds" that produce small garlic bulbils. Bulbils are tiny, undivided bulbs that can be used as seed. Garlic do not have fertile flowers so do not produce true seeds. 

See: https://www.cog.ca/uploads/TCOG%20Articles/Growing%20garlic%20from%20bulbils.pdf

Curly Garlic Scapes Emerging  from the center of Garlic Plants

Some years we let some of these scapes produce large bulbils that we plant. The following year, each bulbil becomes a single large clove, ideal for processing. These are sometimes available in farmers' markets at a premium because these large cloves are so easy to peel and a single one is perfect for many dishes. In the second year, each of these former bulbils become an ordinary garlic with a dozen, or so, cloves. But if garlic scapes are left unattended, these bulbils get distributed (each year we rotate every crop) overproducing and becoming weeds, literally, thousands of garlic plants competing with everything. One former garlic bed, long abandoned, is so thick with overcrowded garlic, it looks like grass!

Last Year's Missed Bulbils with Scapes: Imagine If All the Bulbils in These Scapes Matured and Planted Themselves. Result? Garlic Grass!

Garlic Scapes Ready for Harvesting

We're trying to get on top of our garlic's propensity to take over our growing spaces and rigorously harvest every scape. Should any escape and, left on their own, they become a dozen or two garlic plants not far from where they grew.  Early scapes are much more tender than later ones so we pick them as soon as they appear. It's sad that the plants continue to grow scape stems after picking them early, but the resources needed to produce bulbils goes into cloves below ground. 

Belle and First of Two Baskets of Garlic Scapes

This year, after cutting off the fibrous "hat", we chopped these scapes in a food processor, portioned them into sandwich bags and sealed in zip-lock gallon bags for freezing. Our 200 square feet of garlic plants made 6 pounds of chopped scapes, ready for 30 to 50 pestos, soups and curries.

Garlic Scape Processing Operation

Saving Food: Apples, Cabbages, Peppers and Beans

It's November 17 and we still have a few dozen bushels of great tasting apples on four Granny Smith trees. 

One of Four Granny Smith Apple Tree Without Leaves But with Hundreds of Apples

We've given away many bushels, dehydrated more and have quite a few bushels waiting for processing. The few heavy frosts we've had haven't touched them. It's hard for me to see them go to waste, though they do help deer and other wildlife thrive. We have a year's supply of applesauce canned and 30 gallons of cider brewing or bottled but have run out of brewing vessels. Every few days I slice and dehydrate 40 or so apples into two gallons of chips. I'll probably pick another ten bushels before they freeze and store them under cover in the garage where I dehydrate them. When it gets way below freezing, they and the dehydrator will need to be transferred to the basement. 

Gallon Bags of Dehydrated Apple Slices and Other Drying Experiments

Three 5-gallon Carboys & Two 6-gallon Pails of Juice Fermenting 

Cabbages did not fair as well as the apples. I had to trim off the top leaves that were damaged by frost. The rest of the heads were still very crisp and hopefully will turn into great sauerkraut (white cabbage) and kimchi (red cabbage). The kimchi also has a few pounds each of garlic and sweet and jalapeño peppers mixed in for flavor. We have a total of seven gallons of these raw veggies slowing fermenting in the garage to extend their time to maturity while we eat more than a dozen fresh cabbage heads and pounds of peppers.

A Few Red Cabbages with Top Leaves Trimmed Off

Cross Section of A Red Cabbage

Five and Three Gallon Crocks Filled with Fermenting Cabbage and Other Veggies. Tops Are Weighing Down Plates That Keep Veggies Submerged in Brine.

Beans are easier to preserve than fruits and vegetables that have to be cut, shredded or squeezed. They simply have to be shelled and spread out to dry. Peppers, too, can be hung out to dry, and look good in one corner of the kitchen. Need a little heat in a dish? Pull one off and crumble it into the pot!

Scarlet Runner Beans in Various States of Drying

A Ristra of Alice's Favorite Hot Pepper (from a fellow seed saver) Hanging Out to Dry

Glazing Details & Finally Planting Garlic

Weather this week has been sunny and warm, perfect for finishing up the greenhouse glazing details. Both the seven panels that make the transition from the building roof to glazing panels and the covering for the remaining five panels peak had to be reinstalled. 

Aluminum-Skinned Foam Panels Make the Transition from the Corrugated Building Roof to the Glazing Panels

EPDM Rubber Sheet Peak Detail

The new glazing panels are three inches longer than the old ones so they create a "drip edge" that will allow gutters to collect rain. Water has been running down the front wall because there was no extension to let water fall free. Next spring I'll install a system to collect rain and store it for watering both the greenhouse and outdoor gardens so we no longer have to pump water up from the pond. Ice and snow from both the connected building and the glazing slides down with lots of force and would damage gutters which would also impede snow removal, required periodically to make way for more snow.

To prevent rain from entering the internal passages of the glazing, I had to fabricate aluminum flashing that sheds water and allows any moisture inside the panel to drain. These flashing details had to be inserted just under the top layer of the panels so that they readily shed ice and snow but don't get knocked off by heavy frozen sheets when they slide down. Finally, everything had to be caulked to keep out winter winds.

Drip-Edge Detail That Covers the End of the Glazing Panels, Readily Sheds Ice and Snow yet Allows Moisture that Collects Inside the Panels to Drain and Will Let a Gutter Collect Rain 

I like to plant garlic during October so that it develops healthy plants before the ground freezes solid but this year finishing the greenhouse was more important. The first 300 cloves did make it into the ground today and the rest will probably follow within a week. An early thaw will let them flourish next season but we'll have to get by with a smaller harvest if we get an extended cold spring like this year.

Garlic Bulbs Ready to Be Broken Into Individual Cloves for Planting

First Wide Row of Garlic Cloves Planted, Root End Down

Garlic Bed Covered with Two Inches of Soil, Then Two Inches of Mulch

Second Garlic Row and It's Getting Dark Already!

Both Rows Ready for Winter!

Closeup of This Year's Garlic Bed Now Covered in Parsley That Was Planted in June Five Weeks Before Harvesting the Garlic. The Seeds Need Be Sprinkled Around the Thinning Mulch That is Being Eaten by Earthworms and Pill Bugs. This Parsley Is the Main Ingredient, Along with Garlic, of Our Favorite Pesto!

Summer Squash, Apples, Corn and Garlic

Following a dry spring, timely precipitation since May resulted in bumper crops of shell peas, sugar snap peas, string beans, potatoes, beets, strawberries, raspberries, currants, gooseberries, and many different herbs. 

Garlic Scapes Being Prepared for the Freezer

We're harvesting enough summer squash to be able to share more than 40 pounds a week with neighbors and a homeless shelter. 

Striped Zucchini Squash

Yellow Summer Squash

Our first planting of sweet corn was fully mature and we've harvested ears from all 160 plants. It's a hybrid yellow Se+ Corn called Sugar Buns from Johnny's Selected Seeds. 

The First Crop of Corn Has Been Pulled Out and Laid Down So It Can Compost. Four Rows of the Second Crop, in the Background, Is Beginning to Ripen.

 We steamed the ears for a few minutes and then stripped the kernels from the cobs using an implement made for this purpose that has a cylinder of stainless steel with tiny teeth on one end. By squeezing the handles together, the cylinder becomes smaller so it matches the diameter of the cob.

Seventy Pounds of Corn Ready for Stripping Off the Kernels

Leather Gloves Are Required to Process This Amount of Corn Because the Handles of the Tool Are Small And Eventually Cause Blisters. The Hand Opposite the Stripping Hand Often Gets Hit by the Sharp Teeth of the Stripper and a Glove Prevents Blood That Would Contaminate the Kernels.

160 Corn Plants Not Only Delivered a Few Dozen Meals for Us and Neighbors But Also This Pile of Cobs and Ready to Freeze One Pound Packages. Each Tray Weighs Around 35 pounds.

The next harvesting effort will be processing apples. One of our trees is laden with perfect apples - when last year it did not produce a single one. This process probably interrupted the parasite cycle so that there were none to devour this year's crop. Until they are all gone, each week we'll deliver 50 pounds of freshly picked apples to the homeless shelter we support. Every day we gather a bucket or two of drops that we'll process into juice and sauce. We've already made a few pies and crisps and will probably make a few more. We also have a few Granny Smith Apple Trees that are loaded, but their crop won't be ready until late September.

The Apple Tree Had So Many Fruit That Props Were Necessary to Prevent the Limbs from Breaking. 

This Unnamed Variety of Apple Is the Earliest Ripening One We Know: Last Week of July.