We love garlic and our habitation - grown craw encounter its manner into everything from homemade pasta sauce to salsa , marinades , dishes and more , including being the principal ingredient in an efficient all - instinctive bug spray . ( see : rude Garlic and Hot Pepper Bug Sprays )
Garlic is in reality quite dim-witted to rise and store extremely well , gain it a majuscule craw for the home gardener . If you throw in that commercially grown Allium sativum is illustrious to be one of the most pesticide loaded crops – it makes even more gumption to grow your own!(see : How To Plant Garlic )
[ youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePExbiVMa2E ]
Fresh garlic pulled from the soil.
Here in Ohio – we plant our garlic in early to mid - September – allowing it just enough to metre to get a drumhead start and shoot through the filth before winter lot in . As the Spring thaw begins – the garlic takes off again and is usually quick to harvest by the last workweek of June or the first calendar week of July . The tell - tale star sign that garlic is ready to harvest is when the leaves and chaff move around about half brown .
It is important to glean garlic when the soil is more on the dry side – and with the recent downpour of rainwater – we were starting to wonder if we would ever be able to pull them out of the ground . But with a couple of dry day this weekend – and the advantage of engraft the crop in raised dustup – it was harvest sentence !
overbold garlic pulled from the grime .
Garlic hanging up in the barn to cure
Using a pitchfork ( a digger will work well too ) – we made working down both rows , carefully digging down about 4 to 6 inch beside each gunstock – and then lifting slowly up to reveal the bulbs . We then gently brush off the soil from around the garlic bulb and solution – taking care not to damage any of the clove or stem . The more deliberate you are in this phase – the better chance your garlic has to heal and then hive away afterward without losing any to rot . If there is a small dirt left on them while curing , it will dry and sweep off by and by .
Garlic hanging up in the b to cure
It ’s best to get the garlic out of the direct sun right as soon after the harvest home as possible and start the cure mental process . Curing is unlike from long - full term storage .
To cure our ail – we hang it on hooks inside the barn where it can air out dry out out of the lineal sunlight . I love coming in the b for the next few weeks and sense the productive savor as it bring around – in fact , it have me more ready than ever for the Lycopersicon esculentum harvest time so we can start to make our homemade pasta sauce !
Once we have it cured , the very next affair we do is select the full-grown and best medulla oblongata for this spill ’s planting of next year ’s crop . This “ best of the best ” selection process assure our garlic will grow a little expert each class by picking the healthiest and largest for seminal fluid . Garlic also begins to mature better each year as it becomes accustomed to your soil and conditions . I am stunned at how much our harvests improve each class from selecting the best from our source .
If you would like to receive ourSunday Updateseach week – be certain to sign up to succeed the blog via electronic mail in the right manus column , “ like ” us onFacebook , or travel along us onTwitter . felicitous Gardening ! – Jim and Mary
