Apple Gully Farm: Garlic Harvest

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Ever wondered how that pristine white garlic in the supermarkets gets to be so clean! It's grown in the soil so shouldn't it have a hint of it's growing environment on it? And the taste - well, there isn't any, it doesn't matter how many cloves go into the pot it is just so bland. To get it looking snowy white it's bleached and given a chemical bath - then you eat it! some extra reading -- http://www.naturalnews.com/022801_garlic_Australia_food.html

April planting

Now that we have the space I decided to test drive as many garlic types as I could find to see if I could rediscover the taste of real garlic in our food. I scoured the seed catalogues and the net to learn as much as I could about the plant before I started to grow it. Our climate turned out to be perfect for garlic as it needs cold winters, like a lot of bulbs. Basically garlic can be planted at the same time as daffodils and most of your spring flowering garden bulbs.

up and growing

The trial garlic plot went in last March/April, seven different varieties altogether. Each garlic bulb was split into cloves and planted. Most had sprouted within a week to ten days, so something in their DNA told them that the minute they hit the soil it was time to send out a green shoot and start the growing process.

October - not ready yet

We planted Italian Purple, Monaro Purple, ( which look the same to me) Italian White, Giant Russian, French Red, stiff necks and soft necks and a few nameless bulbs as well.
By May they were all up, then they just seemed to stop. Anxious to make sure my crop was not a complete failure I dug up a clove every month or so and I can report that all the growing action goes on below ground during winter. Each little clove slowly forms into a small new bulb that grows and grows till Spring. Then the green shoots really take off and the underground work gets serious as the little cloves morph into seriously big new bulbs.

My garlic is definitely not white

This year after a very wet start we ended up with virtually no rain from July till harvest, so the crop had to be watered. The blindingly obvious became clear - water is essential. The bulbs at the edges of the watering system did not prosper nearly as well as those with plenty of water. Weeds were not a big issue because most of the growing cycle is in the colder months. I did discover a great Japanese tool for weeding that's more like a old cut throat razor than a hoe, it's so sharp you could shave with it- well I wouldn't, but that's how sharp it is. The tool comes with its own pouch, sharpener and a bottle of Camellia oil to clean it after use. Only the Japanese would treat a garden tool with such respect. Unfortunately mine has assimilated into the Aussie way of life a little too easily, it's slouching around in the shed looking pretty dirty.

You know it's time to dig up the bulbs when the green foliage starts to turn yellow and die off. Everything this year has been done by hand, so it's labour intensive. You just have to get down and dirty. Next year I will have to move into the 21st century and find some sort of machinary to help me.

The crop was generally a success, except for the Giant Russians that are puny whimps. I don't know what went wrong.

The garlic is now drying in the shed, tied and labelled. I'm practising french plaiting and I'm gathering lots of recipes and ideas for garlic use. Watch this space.

On a sunny day the aroma of gently drying garlic drifting from the shed is tantalising. I can report that it's a successful vampire deterrent - while we see many kangaroos, wombats, foxes, rabbits and wallabies -- not a single vampire has been spotted lurking around the shed.