Garlic Fe(a)st

August 27, 2010 · Filed under vegetables · Tagged garlic

Yummy, yummy, yummy, I love garlic. I love it in all ways, raw, sautéed but I especially love it roasted. I am getting hungry just thinking about it.

I do not grow a lot of different vegetables and herbs, my garden is quite shady, but I do grow garlic every year. It is so easy, that I feel slightly guilty even writing about it.  In September, I just push a clove of garlic in, point side up, in rows about 6 inches apart with the cloves 6 inches apart as well.  Thats it, that is all I do.

In the spring they start growing, and growing.  I do cut the scapes off when they start straightening up, they are quite curly at first.  The first year I grew the garlic, I didn’t cut them off, I wanted to see what they looked like.  They were nice, looked like a chive flower, but larger. 
What a mistake, they went to seed, and I had/have a million little garlic seedlings growing in my Kitchen Garden. Never again.

In August, when the 3 or 4 sets of the lower leaves start browning, I dig them up, shake most of the soil off them and lay them out to dry.

After they have been drying for a week, I rub a layer of the old dirty skin off, revealing the fresh white skin underneath, cut the top off and the roots.

If you are curious to see what my garlic looked like last year, I think the bulbs were even larger, you can read about it here.

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