And just like that, after nine months of waiting, we have GARLIC! And not just a little bit of garlic, we have bulbs upon bulbs of glorious, large-sized garlic!
I might be just a tad on the elated side at the moment.
I will also probably have to be reclassified as vampiric repellent as much garlic is going to be ingested in the near future.
But enough of that, I have to talk about the garlic. It has been a couple weeks and a whole heck of a lot of heat in these parts since I last talked about the garlic and their scapes. After much close observation, I finally walked out one day and saw that the plants were where they needed to be so they could be harvested, cured, and dried. The bottom four leaves on each stalk were dead and dried back, so it was go time.
The hubs took the potato fork and walked in front of me, loosening the soil a bit. I followed behind and plucked the bulbs out of the ground.
It did not take long to fill our big Rubbermade wheelbarrow.
Of course we had a bunch of overseers. The cats and dogs all had an opinion about our efforts. Thankfully they weren't too critical.
After digging all the garlic, we wheeled the crop over to the barn, bundled the bulbs together, and suspended them from the heavy duty wire the hubs installed last year for flower and garlic bulb drying.
In a few weeks time the bulbs will be all cured, and I will sort out the best and biggest for next year's crop. Okay, I will also be ordering some seed garlic, because I am working on expanding our garlic production.
One thing I am super excited about is that I just got a new food dehydrator and I will be drying and grinding up some of the small bulbs into garlic powder. I can't wait to smell and use that flavorful delight in all the things!
Since I never can do just one job, there was also some statice cutting too, but I didn't mind, they are such beautiful flowers.
And faster than you can say, *"Jojo brought a live mouse into my house and slapped it into my barn boot this week," * the hubs and I had the garlic harvest chore all done. Lani even posed underneath some of the hanging garlic like the bestest girl that she is.
As some of you may have noticed, I have been absent from my Hive domain for a few days more than normal. I haven't had a day off since the third, plus there was a lot of living in those couple past weeks. I met a country music star, went to a very interesting wedding, several parties, did at least three people's labor in the bakery, and have been trying to keep up with everything on the farm. It's been something.
Today, well, today I accomplished a to-do catch up list that would have made many people weep in despair. I should know, I kinda wanted to. I mean, besides harvesting the garlic, I ordered wheels for our truck, made reservations, set up a new college portal, paid bills, tended to animals, made blueberry muffins for my brand new Marine child who's home on leave, filed an annual LLC report, ordered all manner of things, and did all manner of things that I can't remember to list at the moment. Life is definitely full of Life around here right now.
And you know what? I am utterly and completely elated about it all.
I just might need a nap.
But for now, I am gonna jet. There's plants that need fertilizing, an rv site that needs raking, and a sourdough discard cake that needs baking.
And as most of the time, all of the images in this post were taken on the author's not yet in garlic scent but probably will be soon iPhone. The text divider image was made in Canva.