Urban Garlic Harvest
July 6th, 2009 · 2 Comments · Posted in garden
We harvested enough garlic last week to last the rest of the year. Here you see the softneck variety, which produced big, luxurious bulbs.
Softneck garlic is the kind you normally find in the grocery store, with an indeterminate number of cloves of various sizes. A second type of garlic–hard neck–produces a more uniform bulb with a set number of cloves, usually fewer in number and more or less the same size. The hardnecks produce the scapes, or flower stems, that you hear so much about these days as a cooking ingredient.
Growing garlic doesn’t require much space. Provided it’s planted in a sunny, well-drained spot, it hardly requires any effort at all. And for a ridiculously small amount of work, you save the expense of buying it at the store and always have some ready when you need it. Now we just need to find a dark spot to hang this garlic and “cure” it. The garlic should be ready to use in two or three weeks.
Interested in growing your own garlic? You’ll want to order some “seed” and plan on planting in the fall. Here’s a good guide to the process.
fromartz // Jul 6, 2009 at 10:30 am
We’re on the same schedule: I pulled 40 heads of garlic on July 3.
Ed Bruske // Jul 6, 2009 at 10:59 am
Sam, that sounds like a great haul. What’s your strategy for curing your garlic?