German Extra Hardy garlic on a Fiestaware dinner plate
My helper friend was here on Friday and we brought the garlic into the living room where it was cool to work on. He cut the heads off the stalks and I did the grading.
The above photo shows the types I was looking for, for seed for planting in October. They were 4 big cloves, 5 big cloves, or 6 big cloves with maybe a smaller one. The 4 or 5 clove bulbs could have no smaller ones. I am selecting for big cloves and trying to increase the number of them on a bulb. I’ve been doing this since 2008.
Yellow bags are my seed. Red bag under them is seed for sale. The rest is to eat.
Anything that didn’t make the cut was set aside to be eaten. I needed about 225 cloves to plant in October. That will give me plenty to select from next year for seed, and the rest to eat.
I was left with about 10¼ lbs of high quality bulbs to sell. (My seed weighed about 8½ lbs.) The bulbs weigh between 2.25 oz – 3.4 oz. each.
Total harvest was 42#. The first year I kept track of weight was 2017 and I had 25# that year. Then 28# in 2018 and last year I had 38#.
I’ve never had shallots in a form I could store before due to too late harvesting. So I decided to leave the shallots on the stalks to store. There would be less pressure on each one that way. If I cut them off and put them in a bag, there’s a lot of pressure on the lower ones, and I’m not sure how they’d do. I put a bag over them to catch any that fall off. Both blue and red bags are shallots.
The root cellar is getting pretty full now. I sure could use a new larger one, but that’s a long ways down the road.
I discovered that I don’t have the regular mouth pint jar stash I thought I had. I’m down to my last box of 12. I am also completely out of my normal stash of lids! I do have an emergency stash, but I hate to break into that. So my husband is picking me up 4 more cases of pint jars. Fortunately they come with lids…
When we were out tag saling, I would always pick up jars and lids if I saw them. But the years of no tag sales have apparently taken its toll. I do so miss them, out of everything that’s now no longer…
Saturday I have 40# of red tomatoes to turn into the 2nd round of spaghetti sauce. I will use up the last of the 2019 garlic.That will keep me busy all day.