Last fall I planted garlic and shallots. Thinking about them now takes me back to those early spring days when the covering was removed and the seaweed pushed aside. This allowed those first traces of the garden season to be revealed. Any seed that emerges is welcome, but seeing that first bit of green on a background of brown dirt is especially gratifying.
Over the course of the summer, I trimmed off the flowering stalk of the garlic as well as those stalks on the shallots and the red onion starts. I’ve always felt like the garlic scape is a bonus. In the store, you can buy garlic. However, if you plant it, you get both the bulb and the scape — two for the price of one.
The flowering stalk of the shallot and the red onion are a bit like the scape. They have a milder flavor than what you will eventually harvest. The texture is different as well. Still, two for the work of one.
This week I harvested my garlic. I used a three-prong fork to dig under the bulb to loosen the soil. Then I gently pulled it out and shook off the dirt. In the past I haven’t been as good at removing all the dirt. This means that you end up pulling off those first two papery layers later and usually get a bit of dirt as you peel your garlic.
This year I hosed the garlic and gathered the garlic into three bundles. I kept the stalk on them, as it’s easier to tie string around them. I like to hang them in order to get good air circulation. If you don’t have this ability, then rotate them regularly.
Garlic has to cure in a dry place. Drying takes a few weeks and it doesn’t really work on the back deck of a boat. So, I’m thankful for good friends who allow their garage to smell like a delicatessen. The garlic odor is unbelievably strong. I believe that my three bundles of garlic alone are powerful enough to purge vampires from all of Juneau.
The smell gradually fades and you are left with garlic that can last well into the winter. I will store my bulbs in reused net bags. Around March, I’ll anticipate that the center of the cloves will have a green shoot emerging so I’ll try to use them before.
Now is the time to harvest the garlic. The papery layers that protect the cloves thin if the bulbs sit in the soil too long. This decreases the amount of protection the garlic will have and could reduce the length it can be stored.
I’ve also begun to harvest the shallots. This is my first year growing them, so back when the flowering stalk appeared I called Ed Buyarski to get advice. He told me that garlic needed to be harvested when they were ready, when the leaves turn yellow, but that shallots were able to stay in the ground a bit longer. This is a good thing since they don’t store as well.
Harvesting your garden makes you feel both wealthy and blessed. Although I’ve been picking things as they ripen, the garlic is the first, large harvest. Just like those emerging plants in the spring, I feel an immense satisfaction as I review my bounty.
• Corinne Conlon is a freelance writer based out of Juneau. She can be reached at dirtgirlgardening@gmail.com.
Shallot and red onion flower stalks are shown.
