In October of 2016, we bought a 3-pound bag of garlic from Sam’s Club. We broke the heads apart and planted about 2 pounds of cloves into a raised bed in rows about 10″ apart. We harvested the garlic once the bottom 2 or 3 leaves started to yellow and die. We got an amazing harvest of 10 pounds of garlic! We dried it in the top of the pole barn for about four weeks and then took it down to process.
Sarah is peeling garlic that Loren has trimmed and cleaned. She’s been at it for about 2 hours and has yielded about 1 pound of peeled cloves. It’s SLOW going and burns the hands after an hour or so.
To preserve the garlic, we tried a recipe where the peeled cloves are put into sterilized jars with boiling vinegar. About two pounds of peeled cloves gave us 8 half-pint jars. The jars were not processed, so we will keep them in the fridge for up to a year. Supposedly, if you rinse the garlic before using it, the vinegar flavor won’t be present. We shall see. Now… what to do with eight more pounds of garlic in our hot and humid environment….?