The last of the 2010 garlic harvest - I used the final cloves in a pasta sauce, they were a bit dried out and starting to sprout, but tasted fine, then a few days later.....
Fresh garlic ready for a plate of Nasi Goreng. There are not many things I can say I'm self sufficient in, but garlic is one of them. I gifted a lot of the 2010 harvest and used a lot, because we had so many, and miraculously it was the perfect quantity. I'm also self sufficient in oregano, sage, parsley, silverbeet, chives, thyme and lettuce - which do a great job of planting and growing themselves. My garlic aren't huge but they're tasty, long lasting, and plentiful.
Middle bowerbird helped me dig them up and he reckoned it was pretty fun. This is just a small portion of our garlic harvest. This years bulbs aren't super big, I may have dug them up a bit prematurely, but they were all falling over. It will be interesting to compare these with those harvested a little later. I've got garlic in spots all over the garden.
Thinking this empty harvest spot might be a good location for a tomato or two, or maybe some beans. I've put all the bulbils back in the ground near the tree trunk to be dug up and transplanted when they re-sprout.
I have found garlic don't like competition much and grow best with their own spot, this also helps with finding them when it's time to harvest. I have allocated them a place under our fruit trees for the last few years, and whilst it's not the most fertile ground, they are very forgiving. Most of the bulbs are from the plants I forgot to harvest that I find sprouting around the garden in late Autumn. Many of these were transplanted by my lovely vegie group friends. The upside to growing things under, or on the edge of the fruit trees is that I nourish the trees a lot more. The Greengage plum these were under is set for a bumper crop this year.
Garlic digging shovel casualty.
Falling down garlic, could be more browned off but rain forecast and concern about losing them if the stems broke down got me harvesting.
Scapes, we have a few of these around the garden that I have let flower, and I now have bulbils growing at 2 year stage - it will be interesting to see how they go next year.
Super fresh garlic - plump, juicy, delicious. The best!
I'm gearing up for some garlic braiding.
More on garlic and all the wonderful varieties below. Not sure what ours are, a bit of a mix but they are often a beautiful shade of pink or purple. It would be interesting to do a blind tasting of the different varieties, I'm not confident I could tell the difference.
The Witches Kitchen recently had some excellent tips on growing garlic on her blog.
Congrats on a great Garlic harvest!!!
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