For people who want to grow more food with less work. 🌱 This is my weekly newsletter loved by 38,000+ subscribers—here's what one of them had to say: "These are not the regular run-of-the-mill garden-based emails. You actually touch on more unusual tidbits that encourage me to keep growing and learning."
my homegrown garlic lasted 11 months in storage—here's how that happened
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Can you believe I just finished up the last of the garlic that I grew LAST summer?! And it was still perfectly good, firm, and flavorful like the day I harvested it. That's 11 months in storage (in my garage, piled into mesh bags and placed on a wire shelf), which is a new record for my Music garlic. What's even better is that I'm only a couple weeks away from my next garlic harvest, so I'm pretty dang pleased that I only have to buy garlic once before that happens. 😄 If you planted garlic last fall, chances are your garlic crop is pretty much ready—or almost ready—to harvest. (You can tell when it's time by looking at the leaves.) But once it's out of the ground, how do you make it last all winter (and even into spring and summer)? Did you know garlic can actually keep for several months and still taste as fresh as the day you picked it? The key lies in curing—a simple process of tightening up the skins, toughening up the bulbs, and drying out your garlic completely so it can be stored. Don't wash them. Don't cut the leaves off too early. You want to give time for the garlic to properly cure. ​Here's how you do that (and how best to store the bulbs so they actually last without sprouting).​ Speaking of garlic, Peaceful Valley has a really nice selection of seed garlic for sale right now. While I usually stick with my tried-and-true garlic varieties (like Music), this year I decided to try something new and purchased a pound each of Bogatyr and Georgian Fire to plant in fall. If you haven't preordered your seed garlic yet, Peaceful Valley is offering 20% off sidewide with code BLOOMUSA20 (through July 8). Use it for garlic or to stock up on seeds! I recommend an edible cover crop seed mix like this one to plant in fall (or this Austrian winter pea cover crop if you live in a cold climate), or some new seeds for fast-growing leafy greens you can sow right now and harvest through the first frost. (That's what I'll be doing next week to prep for my fall garden—yep, it's already time!) P.S. Learn how to make your garlic last for months by curing it properly. P.P.S. July is National Park & Recreation Month! Yeah, I didn't know that either but I'll take any excuse to celebrate the great outdoors! 😄 If you're looking for some inspiration in the kitchen or out in the wild, or just some new ways to use all those vegetables you're growing (or buying) this summer, check out my cookbooks! |
Garden Betty
For people who want to grow more food with less work. 🌱 This is my weekly newsletter loved by 38,000+ subscribers—here's what one of them had to say: "These are not the regular run-of-the-mill garden-based emails. You actually touch on more unusual tidbits that encourage me to keep growing and learning."