The Walden Effect: Farming, simple living, permaculture, and invention.

Sorting garlic for storage

Sorting garlicOur garlic has had a good month plus of drying time hanging under the eaves, so I decided it was time to clean it up and move it inside for storage.  I took down our strands of garlic, rubbed the dirt out of the roots, and trimmed both roots and leaves back.  Next step was sorting --- I like to pull out the very biggest heads for planting, and at the same time I set aside the tiny or damaged heads for immediate eating.  We've saved lots of mesh bags from buying oranges and onions, so I popped each variety into its own bag and put the whole mess on our scales.

Storing garlic"How many pounds of garlic do you think we grew this year?" I asked Mark minutes later, wanting to brag.

"Six pounds?" was his less than ambitious reply. 

"No!" I hooted.  "25.5, plus whatever we've eaten in the last month."  Then, as the wheels turned in my head, I added "That's half a pound of garlic per week.  Do you think we grew too much?"

Mark got a puzzled look on his face --- clearly, the idea of too much garlic had never occurred to him.  "Of course not," he answered.  "You'd better get cooking!"  Garlic green beans for supper it was.

Treat your hens to a homemade chicken waterer, the perfect treat on a hot summer day.


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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



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:)
Comment by Bethany James Thu Jul 22 09:17:22 2010
That`s a lot of garlic. I planted it for the first time this year and have been running around learning when to harvest. I have a bad habit of planting and THEN learning what I should be doing...
Comment by SoapBoxTech Thu Jul 22 15:12:54 2010
Knowing when to harvest seems to be the one tricky part of growing garlic. We didn't have much trouble just testing one every week or so, though.
Comment by anna Thu Jul 22 15:36:51 2010
I remember when you thought garlic was something to be left alone and NEVER put into food. What a joy it is to know that you now eat garlic. I did have to laugh a bit when you tried to make a soup from your father's receipe and it did not turn out as flavorfull as you remembered it. Obviously, you left out that "icky" garic!
Comment by Sheila Thu Jul 22 23:39:36 2010
It's amazing how good food tastes when you grow it yourself...
Comment by anna Fri Jul 23 06:59:19 2010





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