Garlic In!

 A bit later than some years, but I've got my garlic in. 

Last year I planted a huge selection of garlic cloves from a lot of varieties. this was partly for flavour and partly to see what did well here. 

This year I've decided to just plant the best blubs that I got from this years harvest, I'm not worried what type they are, although I will try to plant a selection of different ones to make sure that when we have a very different year then others might thrive instead. 

I had some good ones this year, two whole beds in, and I'm tempted to do more. The garden has quite a bit in it now - next post I'll tell you what I've put in 12 beds as a bit of an experiment. 

Got your garlic in?

Garlic Harvest

Every day last week the boy was asking me when we were going to harvest our garlic. He had even taken to carrying some garlic around in his pocket as he wanted to plant it! 

I didn't want to do it without him so waited until the weekend when we could dig it up together. 

Cabbage & Beetroot Sauerkraut

When we were at Hellens Garden festival last month we tried some amazing ferments made by a local firm. 

The two I liked best were the kimchi (hot and spicy) and a beetroot sauerkraut. What set this sauerkraut apart from others I'd tried was the addition of ginger and garlic. It just lifted the flavour so much!

So I decided it was time I had a go at making it. I loved our fermented wild garlic from a few years back so thought it would be good to get back into it.

Fermented Wild Garlic

With so much wild garlic ready for picking at the start of the month I wanted to properly take advantage of it this year. 

I looked online and in a few books to see what else could be done with this wild harvest. One idea that really got me curious was to ferment it. I've been wanted to try more fermented stuff and as I have a talk on preserving later in the year I thought that might make a useful bit of the talk! 

Shallots & Garlic Ready For Storage

This year I hadn't gone mad with alliums, instead I'd concentrated on the higher price tag veg like garlic and shallots, in fact I hadn't grown any onions but I do have a full bed of leeks looking like they're ready for winter and going to taste amazing! 

Lovely shallots

So on Tuesday I sat down and actually sorted through what I'd grown and got it ready for storage. Something I should do straight away, not months after, but didn't have the time to when I harvested. 

I was really annoyed at myself while I was doing it, there was some garlic that had gone mouldy because it was left at the bottom of the stack, that's wasted food that I'd spent time, space and effort growing.

garlic sorted ready for storage. 

I also sorted through and cleaned up my shallots as well. I grew two different types and you don't need to be a horticulturist to tell them apart!

 The one batch were amazing, not a bad one in there and all looked beautiful (and they taste amazing as well, with a delicate flavour), whereas the other batch all looked dehydrated (I'm guessing from being dried in the greenhouse) and although still usable they just don't appeal in the same way. 

The somewhat obligatory picture of one of my children at work

Not such great shallots

Stored ready for use over winter - although i know they won't last long! 

I need to make a real effort to spend more time looking after what I've grown, my main trouble is I'm always far too busy with my own paying work in the summer, something I need to take measures to alter in someway, working from home more and on site less I think. 

I've often said that the most important part of self sufficiency is food storage, because there's little point in growing it all if you can't store it to use when you need it. 

Alliums are a prime example of this, treat them right and you can have a supply all year round, take you eye off the ball, like I have here, and you'll be left with very little when you need it most. 

I'm now planning my harvest for next year and I'm going to order in all new stock for my garlic and shallots (although I might grow the shallots from seed instead) so that I'm not breeding on from a harvest I wasn't happy with. The rust problem I had alone has put me off using my own stock of garlic blubs/cloves let alone the storage problems.

What alliums do you grow for storage over winter?  

What is your favourite type of shallot and garlic to grow?

Any tips for good storage with these crops?

Garlic Harvest

When I came back off holiday I saw the neighbours (who'd been looking after the place) then went round all the stock and then went into the garden. 

Everything has been growing like crazy and I could see a hundred jobs to do. 

One that needed doing straight away was harvesting the garlic. It's smaller and earlier than I'd like but it was badly affected by rust and I think it had stopped it growing. Looking at my crop it should have been harvested a week a go as some of the skin around it has started to go bad and soft. 

Batch one

I pulled it up and laid the three types into three apple different crates I made earlier in the year (I copied these ones here). I left the garlic out in the sun yesterday to dry off. 

Batch two

Batch three

Really pleased with these crates although I think I'll make some mesh bottomed ones for drying garlic and onions next year rather than the slats. 

I certainly haven't harvested it at it's optimum so I hope it will all keep. If it starts going bad I'll look into different ways of storing or preserving it, I'm tempted to pickle some anyway.  I'm sure it will dry up nice and I'm worrying about nothing. I still have my elephant garlic to harvest as that's not ready yet. 

Next year I'll plant it further apart so that the air can circulate around it more, one thing I really need to start doing is giving plants more space, there is no greater false economy than planting things too close together and getting smaller plants as a result. 

Has anyone else harvested their garlic yet? Anyone else suffer with rust on their alliums and have a good organic cure for it?

Alliums - How Many To Plant?

My leeks are looking very proud and big this year, it's crop I seem to have nailed and I've been really pleased as I've started to dig them up. 

When I start to use a crop like this that's been growing for months I always start to wonder if I've grown enough. I have one 10ft by 4ft bed full of leeks but I'm sure if we ate them with more gusto it wouldn't last us until march. The onions in the shed are already running low but I knew I didn't have enough of those planted to last us out. 

In fact I think alliums are a really tricky one to grow the right amount. I currently have two complete beds taken up with next years crops, garlic and shallots, that's without having room for my onions or next years leeks. Out of 16 beds total in rotation that's a lot of space currently being dedicated to them. 

When I cook I tend to use them a lot, most meals I cook use an onions and garlic, probably three or four out of five meals, so over a year that means I'd need about 300 without allowing for spoilage, making preserves or large meals when friends or family come round. I know that shallots can bridge the gap a little bit and I need to be better at using them but due to how much longer they take to prepare I tend to use them only where a recipe calls for it. 

The other downside is the fact that they are a fairly low value crop and the taste isn't hugely different to what you'd get in the shops (although I know how I grew them). If you were short on space I'd suggest leaving out the common onion for more exotic crops, although they are strangely satisfying to grow. 

So how much space to delicate to the lowly allium in your veg garden? If you were going for self sufficiency how many do you think you'd need?

Buying Garlic To Plant

I try not to buy too much in the way of seeds and other sundries for the garden if I can help it at the moment. I prefer to swap or save if I can but I always end up buying a few things and and sometimes it's good to introduce new lines to what I'm growing.

Suttons had an email offer the other day of their autumn planting garlic and shallots set, reduced from £25 to £10. 

I bought it on a whim, which is unusual for me, but when it turned up I wasn't disappointed. There was three lots of garlic, one bag had two bulbs in and the other two had three bulbs, then the two types of shallots weighed in at 500g each. A good amount of alliums to plant! 

I managed to get the garlic planted today and hopefully I'll get the shallots in tomorrow. With those three new types of garlic and my own saved from this year (as well as the elephant garlic) I'm going to have a couple of beds full (with the shallots as well) and that's before I've planted any onions in the spring! 

We do love garlic though and I think we'll always use what ever we grow, just as we grow more we might smell a little more...

Elephant Garlic Harvest

Harvested my first elephant garlic harvest last night - by head torch! 

I'm really pleased with the size of the bulbs and can't wait to try it.

Ten good sized bulbs and a plant pot full of bulblets which I plan to plant as well. I think if you grow those it takes two years instead of one to grow to full size - I'll do some more research before I plant them! 

Anyone else growing elephant garlic?

Garden Experiment - Single Clove Garlic

With my less than ideal storage conditions much of my garlic is starting to sprout, a timber shed just isn't the right place for it. I wish I preserved some of it last summer when it was at it's finest but I'll just have to make plans for that when I harvest it this year and not save so much to use "off the bulb". 

Having this sprouting garlic has given me an idea though and I've decided to have a little experiment with growing some single cloved garlic, I've read people sometimes call it lazy garlic as there is less to peel! 

One of my raised beds for my experiments

 The theory being that garlic needs a month of cold weather to separate into lots or cloves inside the bulb. By planting now when the worst of the cold weather is over it should grow nicely but as one large clove, kind of like elephant garlic (but not obviously) but with the stronger flavour of normal garlic.

 I divided four bulbs of garlic up and separated it up into large cloves and small ones. 

 The large cloves I then planted at normal spacings for garlic (about 6-8 inches) and fill the bed up with them. The small ones I planted really close together with the intention of pulling these green and using them almost like chives. 

I'm not sure how well this will work, if at all, so please don;t copy me, but I thought it might be an interesting use of some garlic that was well past it's best! I'll report on these later in the year.

Anyone else grown garlic with the intention of growing just a single clove? It'll be interesting to compare it to my other garlic that was put in during the autumn and the elephant garlic as well. 

Planting Next Years Garlic

One of the great things about blogs is the gentle reminders you get from reading everyone else's. A lot the UK blogs I follow are planting their garlic about now. I'm  never normally this early but I had a spare hour the other morning and a clear spot in the garden, so I decided to get them in.

 I was a little worried as I haven't got any muck to put on the plot at the moment but then I remembered the veg bed I weeded with the chickens - they manured it for me as well - it worked with my planting plan so I decided to plant them there. 

 I broke up three of the biggest bulbs I harvested this year and then picked out the fattest cloves.  I forked over the plot and dug out the last remaining weeds, added some blood, fish and bone and then planted them about 6 inches apart.

Hopefully planting them this early will give me some big cloves next year, if I can stop the birds from pulling them out every day! My mum is off to Malvern show today (without me - I'm too busy) so I've asked her to buy me some Elephant Garlic to experiment with in the same plot, although I need to do a bit of research on it, as last time it was a flop.

Who else has got their garlic in? Anyone else grown Elephant garlic and had much success with it? - I think you have to grow it for two years to get a good harvest off it.

Allium Harvest

All the alliums (except the leeks obviously) have now been pulled and are drying in the greenhouse or on slabs outside.

Some things have done better than others. 

Lots of shallots! I think I should just grow these!

 The shallots did really well this year and we've a good amount to use in the coming months and enough to save to plant again next year. I roasted some with a roast the other day and I'd forgotten how good they taste, slightly caramelised on the outside and meltingly gooey in the middle - delicious!

All the onions, a bit small but they should keep us in onions for a while

 My onions weren't so good. The rust from my chives did spread but it didn't do too much damage, but I'm not sure how well they would have done with out it.

The red onions didn't amount to much. A lot of them tried to bolt and didn't really bulb up much and some have gone soft already, I'm ready to give up on red onions and just plant more shallots next year.

The brown onions were slightly better, none of them are going to win any awards for biggest veg but most reached a usable size and look healthy so should keep well.

Garlic drying in the greenhouse

 The garlic was a big success. I managed to harvest thirty two good sized bulbs with a handful of smaller ones that we'll use straight away. I was worried that I'd planted them too close together (my usual trick) but I fed them quite often and this has paid off. 

Thirty two good sized garlic bulbs with a handful of smaller ones

I'll save the biggest bulbs to plant again next season, leaving us a good amount to use. I'm not sure it's a years supply but it won't be far off. 

How has everyone else's alliums done this year? 

How are you going to be storing them?

Garlic

Came back from work today (Tuesday) as things were starting to move in the baby department. But unfortunately it was just a false start so I decided to do a few jobs in the garden in this afternoon instead.

 Time to get my garlic in.
This is far earlier than I'd normally get round to planting it so I was quite please with myself. I didn't bother to grow any this year just gone, so it will be nice to have our own supply again as we do use it quite a bit when we've got it in the house.

A double 7ft row should produce all the garlic we'll need for a year so long as they grow well. I mixed in a bit of well rotted cow muck and got the soil to quite a good tilth before planting them to give it the best start.
At least now I'll have something growing over winter!
What kind of quantities do other people plant when trying to work out how much you'll need for a years worth?