The best thing about gardening, conserving foods, cooking... well, probably anything in life, is learning something new. Making homemade applesauce for the first time is thrilling! Making it the fourth or fifth time... It's just something you do.
The garlic heads were divided into cloves and planted last October. They sprouted immediately and put out nice leaves before going into hibernation for the winter. When spring came they started growing again. This is how they looked in early May:
I thought I'd give it a go. Better early than late! Garlic heads that are harvested too early will be a little small, but leave your garlic too long and the cloves will start to separate from the head, making them easier to damage and harder to store.
Brush the dirt off the heads gently without damaging the outer skins, G&P said. Well, had the soil been dry this would have been easy. As it wasn't, I did my best, but quickly made the executive decision that a little dirt wasn't as dangerous as damaged skins.
How many should you tie together? Air needed to circulate around them, so I decided on 6-7. How tightly should you bind them? How would the bunches hang? I was winging it, folks.
But they came out pretty good, in my opinion!
They need to be hung in a dry space with good air circulation that was protected from the sun and had an 80 degree temperature. Hahahahahaha G&P, you're killing me. This is Sweden. 80 degrees out of the sun was out of the question. 80 degrees in the sun is rare. I hoped they would be happy in the wood shed.
Here they will hang to dry for two weeks. Then I'll brush off the dirt, trim the roots, and hopefully braid them for storage. The braiding should be interesting. Another new skill for me to acquire.
In an effort to keep my gardening entertaining, I planted lots of new veggies this year: artichokes, Brussel sprouts, physallis, leeks, peas... and garlic.
The garlic heads were divided into cloves and planted last October. They sprouted immediately and put out nice leaves before going into hibernation for the winter. When spring came they started growing again. This is how they looked in early May:
Traditionally garlic is harvested in July, but everything has been late this year because of May's winter-like temperatures, so I needed something besides a date to go on. I turned to my trusty gardening experts Google and Pinterest (G&P), and read that garlic should be harvested when two-thirds of the leaves have begun to turn brown. Mine looked like this:
I thought I'd give it a go. Better early than late! Garlic heads that are harvested too early will be a little small, but leave your garlic too long and the cloves will start to separate from the head, making them easier to damage and harder to store.
Wait to harvest after a dry spell of a few days, G&P said. Hahahahahahahahahahaha. Come on, G&P, this is Sweden. I had to settle for a dry morning.
Look at the roots on that thing! It took a good half hour to get all my heads out of the ground, but in the end I triumphed over their root system.
Now it looks like you can just grab a stalk and pull it out of the ground, and that's what I would have done had G&P not intervened. You want to treat the garlic head gently, they said. Use a little shovel to loosen it from the dirt and gently ease them out of the ground.
Gently?? Let me tell you, folks... This garlic enjoyed being in the ground and was not coming out without a fight. Had I tried to grab a stalk and pull, I'm quite sure the garlic would have laughed at me. Then I found out why:
Look at the roots on that thing! It took a good half hour to get all my heads out of the ground, but in the end I triumphed over their root system.
Brush the dirt off the heads gently without damaging the outer skins, G&P said. Well, had the soil been dry this would have been easy. As it wasn't, I did my best, but quickly made the executive decision that a little dirt wasn't as dangerous as damaged skins.
Next they were to be tied in bunches. Also a new skill...
How many should you tie together? Air needed to circulate around them, so I decided on 6-7. How tightly should you bind them? How would the bunches hang? I was winging it, folks.
But they came out pretty good, in my opinion!
They need to be hung in a dry space with good air circulation that was protected from the sun and had an 80 degree temperature. Hahahahahaha G&P, you're killing me. This is Sweden. 80 degrees out of the sun was out of the question. 80 degrees in the sun is rare. I hoped they would be happy in the wood shed.
Here they will hang to dry for two weeks. Then I'll brush off the dirt, trim the roots, and hopefully braid them for storage. The braiding should be interesting. Another new skill for me to acquire.
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