Garlic, start to finish

Last fall, I planted what ultimately turned out to be five beds of garlic. Four beds were the variety I'd grown the year before, and the fifth bed was a later addition in which I planted a larger-sized variety. I always plant German porcelain-neck garlic.

By April, the plants looked green and healthy.

I ended up harvesting it in early September, which was honestly a bit late. I should have pulled it up mid-August or so.

This is the size difference between the regular-sized garlic I planted in the four beds, and the larger variety I planted in the fifth bed. (Guess which variety I'll be replanting this year!)

After each bed was harvested, I trimmed off the stems and put the bulbs in a bucket.

After everything was harvested, I had a good amount (in the black tub). Each day, I sat down to trim the garlic, filling a bowl with the trimmed stuff. Working my way through the black tub took about two weeks of trimming in my spare time.

As I worked, I put aside any exceptionally large cloves for planting.

Because I waited so long to harvest the garlic, it came out of its paper shell rather dirty, so I carefully washed and dried it.

Every few pounds, I chopped the garlic up, then put it in a bag and froze it.

Ultimately I ended up with five bags of chopped garlic in the freezer totaling 21.25 pounds. Soon, however, whenever we opened the freezer, we were greeted with the overpowering scent of garlic. I knew it was time to can it up.

I took the bags out of the freezer and let them defrost overnight.

If the garlic smell in the freezer was a bit much, it was nothing next to 21 pounds of defrosted chopped garlic sitting on the kitchen table.

To can minced garlic, especially in this quantity, I started by boiling two large pots of water.

After the water reaches boiling, I turn off the heat and add the chopped garlic. This parboils the garlic.

I let the garlic soak in the hot water for about ten minutes. Then I started filling canning jars. My pressure canner fits 18 regular-mouth canning jars at at time, so I started with that.

The jars are topped off with the cookwater. It's helpful to slide a knife along the inside of the jars to reduce air pockets and bubbles.

Wiping the jar rims.

This is how I store my canning rings.

First batch into the canner.

About 14 lbs. of pressure for 30 minutes.

It took two batches to can up the harvest.

Final tally: 28 pints of minced garlic. That's more than enough to last us a year. Or two. Maybe three.

I washed the jars before storing them in the pantry.

Aha, but I wasn't finished with the garlic. I still needed to get next year's crop planted. Not, more than likely, because we'd run out of canned garlic before next year; but because even with a super-abundant harvest, things must be planted when they must be planted. And garlic must be planted in the fall.

Also, I had ordered a pound of seed garlic in a jumbo size. I'm still trying to "recreate" the huge garlic cloves I grew in our last garden at our old house, and this jumbo-sized garlic was closer to what I was used to. Plus, of course, I had reserved some of the larger cloves from this year's harvest for planting.

Before planting, however, I wanted to amend the beds with compost and sand. This is some of our composted cow manure which Don scooped out of the barnyard and piled below the driveway.

I shoveled some into a wheelbarrow and trundled it up to the garden. And I mean UP to the garden. Everything on our property is sloped, so it's like we're always climbing, y'know?

I decided to plant just two (rather than five) beds with garlic. These two particular beds had potatoes in them before, so I raked them more or less level.

I dumped the first load of compost on one of the beds, and went for another. Darcy was a big help during this process.

I trundled up four loads of compost, two per bed.

Then, from the other side of the property, I scooped up a wheelbarrow full of sand. It. Was. Heavy. So heavy, in fact, that I simply couldn't push it up the incline into the garden.

I had to get a second wheelbarrow and empty a bit of the sand into it, then push that up, then repeat the process a couple more times.

Here's about half the sand, covering one bed.

Using a pitchfork, I turned over the compost/sand and worked it into the soil. Fortunately this was an easier process than I anticipated, so it didn't take long.

The beds were kinda overfilled, but that's okay. They'll settle over the winter.

Then it was time to pull out the seed garlic. Homegrown stuff on the left, new jumbo garlic on the right.

Here's the difference in clove size.

Of the new jumbo garlic, I only had 24 individual cloves, which planted half a bed.

Then I placed the homegrown seed garlic in the rest of the beds.

Planting is easy. Lever a hole with the garden tool, push the bulb down, cover, and voilà.

The last task was to mulch the beds with straw. I pulled up the hay sled with the straw, which normally is tucked under the porch to keep the straw dry.

The garlic beds are now finished. Except for watering and a little light weeding, there is very little I'll need to do to the garlic until next summer.

Darcy's final act was to steal one of my work gloves. He has a "thing" for gloves (but only if they're outside). I had to throw a Frisbee to distract his attention so I could rescue my glove.

Another part of the harvest, done.