That's right-I don't throw ANYTHING away! (So please don't look at our basement.

Then I run the dried pieces through a 'coffee grinder' that I only use for this purpose (a little twenty dollar coffee bean grinding machine does the job better than an expensive food processor!) and pour the powder into old spice jars with shaker caps that I've saved, each containing a little desiccating pouch saved from a bottle of vitamins. Then I place the dryer somewhere I won't mind the smell (like back out on the porch or in an unused room), plug it in and dry the slices for a couple of days-until a sample piece breaks instead of bends. My pleasure, Kim! I take a big batch of cloves, remove the papery skins, slice up the cloves and arrange the slices single file on food drying trays. Mike: I've heard you mention making garlic powder. The remainder will be made into more garlic powder, which for my money (or lack thereof) is the best way to store the bulk of the harvest over winter. But before that, I'll gently break them all open, searching for the biggest cloves for replanting, which I'll do throughout the month of September. My experience is that these heads will keep well-that is, not begin to sprout-until Thanksgiving or so. Big, fat perfect heads that contain only big fat perfect cloves get hung in a cool airy place in old onion bags. I (gently!) rub any remaining dirt off the cured bulbs, trim the roots and tops back and examine each head carefully.īulbs with any damage, like a visibly bad clove or burst wrapper, get pulled apart and the cloves processed into garlic powder (or otherwise used in the kitchen) right away. After five to ten days, I move the cured bulbs inside and harvest more to refill the table.

'Curing' the garlic out of the sun and in a constant breeze really improves the flavor and 'keeping' quality I'd rather leave some plants in the ground a little longer than rush this step. I only harvest as much at one time as I can fit single file on a big table on our porch with a ceiling fan right over the table. When the bottom third of a plant turns brown, that bulb should be ready to harvest-meaning you'll pull up a nice tight wrapper around big fat cloves. You start keeping a close eye on your plants as the end of the school year approaches. Congratulations, Bets! First let's do a quick review of the garlic harvest process. Mike: Thanks to your tips, we harvested a bumper crop of garlic a nice big bulb for every clove we planted! But there are only two of us who use garlic how do we keep our harvest fresh over the next few months?

Youbet you garden