Harvested Gourmet Garlic

It was garlic harvest time this week. It was a warm winter and cool summer so pests and weeds were a plenty and we didn't do a great job de-weeding or fertilizing and our soil's very acidic, so we didn't really set ourselves up for success, but all in all it wasn't so bad. We harvested all the garlic varieties at once (I know you're not supposed to do that) and layed them out on screens (from old windows) to dry. The soil was wet when we dug it up (I know you're not supposed to do that either), but it's been raining cats and dogs for weeks and almost all the green leaves were brown so figured it was now or never. We had to dry the garlic indoors. Little strange having garlic drying all over the apartment. Anyhow, you dry the garlic with the stalks still in place (I think this draws the moisture out of the center of the cloves a little better). You can tell when the garlic's dry enough b/c the green in the stalk is now totally yellow and dry. Once fully dried, you cut off the stalks and roots & brush off any dirt (unless it's softneck garlic in which case you can braid it if you want). If you didn't let your garlic go too long in the soil, you should have plenty of dry skin and can pull off a layer to clean up the garlic a bit.

We started last fall with 2 lbs of Chesnok Red and a 1 lb mix of  Inchellium Red, Red Toch, Simonetti, Mother of Pearl, Purple Glazer, & Martin's Heirloom. The Chesnok Red seemed to have done the best (biggest cloves, weight increased the most, was still the greenest at harvest time).

When we planted the garlic, we put name tags in the ground but for some reason the rain washed away what we wrote (although we used Sharpies). We remembered where we planted the Martin's Heirloom, Mother of Pearl and Chesnok Red, but not the rest.

Upon digging up the garlic (carelessly) we damaged quite a few cloves. On the bright side, that meant we got to eat them! (the plan was to harvest all the garlic and replant it all to grow our supply). We gave away about a pound of it (to very helpful and kind neighbors).

Anyhow, here are the results:
--0.23 lbs Mother of Pearl
--0.09 lbs Unknown Red/Purple Garlic
--5.31 lbs Chesnok Red
--0.18 lbs Martin's Heirloom

So despite not knowing what the 0.09 lbs of unknown purple / red garlic is, it didn't do all the well anyhow considering we planted Inchellium Red, Red Toch, Simonetti, & Purple Glazer (the rest is accounted for).

Anyhow, the harvested and cut and dried garlic is all bagged up in brown paper bags being stored in a cool dry location until replanting time during the Autumnal Equinox (Sunday, Sept 22).