My Bountiful harvest of Garlic and what to do with it....

Jerry, if you only have two garlic heads, and use them both, what are you going to use to ward off vampires?
We grow lots of garlic--use some, freeze some, sell some--and there hasn't been a vampire sighting around here in years!

 

Cheryl, YES! use the flower bed(s) for any vegetable you want to grow. I do. Garlic doesn't take up much room in the bed. it adds some visual contrast, too. Plant the cloves about 3" apart in rows or like flower bulbs in "bunches" Just plant the stuff you buy at the grocery store for now, if you want to try it.

Bunkie, I love my garlic slicer. You might want to try craigs list or ebay or such first. I don't remember how much mine was, I might have gotten it as a hostess item, BUT I do use it it enough to make it's space in the drawer valuable.


Jerry...I think you need to incorporate more garlic into your diet. To me it sounds as if your diet is rather bland. Two bulbs of garlic mightlast me a week or two....if I can't smell you from here, you aren't eating enough!

There are No vampires here, either.


( photo / image / picture from carolyn keiper's Garden )
This is the dehydrator full of garlic from yesterday. I quart jar plus another 1/2 cup or so that didn't fit.

 

Carolyn, How long did it take to dehydrate that much garlic?

 

And did it make the whole house smell like garlic?

 

Donna, all it took was less than overnight. I have two dehydrators and just stack all the racks on one base and turn it on. ( I snagged one at goodwill for $5.00). It was a well worthwhile investment for me.


Barb.... my oh my does my house REEK of garlic while I am doing this. I just started another batch tonight and my nose is burning. But it does smell awesome. I love the smell of garlic! My son asked if he could try some and I said "sure" after a couple seconds he started coughing and said "that's hot ...can I take some to my friend? He would love it".
So, off went that 1/2 cup that was extra.

 

Vampires? It was bad enough with bugs and animals in the garden eating all sorts of stuff now there are vampires? I looked and the Stew does not have a vampire page. How much garlic keeps vampires away? I'm going shopping tomorrow.

Jerry

 

Sorry to keep you ladies waiting

Carolyn we do not freeze them, just keep them sitting in a basket with their paper on in a cool dry place in the kitchen.

Waretrop hope I did not confused you, I guess I was not specific where they were left before being used!

The reason for not freezing them is because they'll loose some of their flavours. Basically there are two grades of garlic here, young and old. The old garlic is the preferred choice because it is much more fragant. The price is slightly more than double that of the young garlic and it is only available in certain shop. We take only the old garlic and Becky did try dicing and freezing them before and some of the flavours were lost.

 

Jerry I hope you bought more than 2 bulbs of garlic from your shopping trip. Errr.... did you see anyone following you back? They are everywhere you know, the VAMPS!!! kekeke!!!

 

I did not know that KK. I am now glad that I waited so long to get busy and slice this up, This house REEKS again tonight from the sliced garlic being dehydrated.. But why not buy the young garlic and let it age? or do you mean by young, that it is immature in size?

 

Carolyn, I am not sure myself what actually is old garlic but we did test the regular garlic from the supermart thinking we could save some money. I have asked several grocers but all gave me different answers. I think the most reasonable answers were those that mentioned that the garlic bulb were left longer in the ground and its curing process. Old garlic are only available in pips, not as a whole bulb. Some even said they are smoked.

 

Jerry, it takes lots and lots of garlic to repel vampires. I suggest you send an urgent message to Carolyn and get a pound or two of her garlic, maybe even three pounds to be on the safe side. Not only garlic has a "bite" you know . . . . :twisted:

 

KK, You need to take a picture and show us what you buy. This sounds interesting. It doesn't sound like anything we have here that I know of. Maybe it is, just in a different package or in a special section of the grocery or a specialty market perhaps, I don't know. We don't call any form of garlic "pips". Is a pip the same as a clove? I am intrigued by your description of what you have available, "smoked" isn't associated with garlic for me, either.

Have you tried to grow any of the garlic on your farm???

 

These are the garlic we use at home ... old garlic.

Oldies ( photo / image / picture from KK Ng's Garden )


China Old Garlic ( photo / image / picture from KK Ng's Garden )

A pip or clove of garlic mean the same thing.
I did a small research by googling it but there were nothing much.

For old garlic, it is just a couple of exporter sites exporting the product from China
http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/58759 ... ience.html

As for the smoke garlic, a exporter from China
http://www.21food.com/products/smoked-garlic-8266.html
and another from UK
http://www.finefoodspecialist.co.uk/ite ... lic/1.html
and another from Australia.
http://www.taste.com.au/forums/viewtopi ... fcadab604f

And while surfing the net for types of garlic, I think this is the most interesting.
http://blackgarlic.com/
You must have a look at this, its awesome!!!
Guess who is looking for Black Garlic?

As for growing garlic, I did but I got the cheap ones from the supermart.

 

Well, that is interesting, KK. I have never seen smoked garlic available here, but I will be looking for it now. I am sure it must be available somewhere...or I will try to make some. I have a friend who already has a smoker made, I wonder if he has it going. One of the posts on the AU forum had a mention that one of the men made his own smoker out of a kettle drum bbq and something else, so it must not be too hard to accomplish. I have never seen the black garlic anywhere, either. It does sound intriguing, I wonder what it tastes like, too.

I wonder if your old garlic just happens to be more mature when it is harvested or if it really is "aged" or something. which really doesn't make sense to me to harvest immature bulbs, but perhaps they aren't all ready at the same time. Are the bulbs separated when you buy them? I have never seen them for sale other than whole bulbs here.

The page from China looks exactly like some of the packaged garlic I see here for sale. How big are their garlic fields, do you think? $800.00 A ton...hmmmm, I wonder how long that would last a person. Certainly they aren't pulling it by hand like I do.


Thanks, KK. All very interesting information you came up with there.

 

Carolyn,, I think what he is talking about is cured garlic. After digging garlic the fresh heads are milder than the cured ones that have been hung to dry longer. Also I have dug some heads that are about half way through the growing season and have not separated into the individual cloves. They are very mild. About like a green onion in size but mild garlic flavor. I forget the variety but I got it at the grocery store.