Sixty More Planted

There has been serious disease on garlic bulbs recently.  Fellow blogger Daphne posted a process intended to clear the cloves of the disease.  An overnight soak in one quart of water containing one teaspoon of baking soda was followed by a rinse and peeling of the cloves.  Then a three minute soak in vodka was followed by a rinse and immediate planting.  We spent just over one hour carefully peeling sixty cloves.  Great tenderness is required to prevent injury to the cloves.  Scissors are used to cut a small nick at the top of each clove  staying clear of the clove flesh.  Using that as a starting point, the clove wrappers are removed.  On occasion blue smoke and street talk fills the air.

 The forty cloves are from a variety named for its source Helen.  Sadly, she has joined the great majority but she was a powerful positive influence on both of us.  Attitude is everything and her constant expression of positivity still has its effect on us.  The twenty cloves are Purple Stripe that we use as a spacer between our major varieties.

Just a short time ago we planted three beds with eight hundred ten cloves.  Now we plant one bed with two hundred twenty cloves.  We now have only five varieties compared with the more than thirty formerly planted.  That still sounds like way too much garlic for an elderly couple but we need next year's seed in addition to what we eat or give away.  At this point we have one hundred twenty planted with one hundred still to go.

Garlic exists in two distinct forms soft neck and hard neck.  Soft neck is preferred for braiding but it does not do well in our rather cold climate.  We have planted only hard neck for decades.  Our main crop consists of four different varieties all carrying local names.  These are all of the Porcelain type and display larger cloves but fewer cloves per bulb.  Helen's seed this year all came from bulbs having exactly four cloves.  Our marker variety is a Purple Stripe type featuring smaller cloves but beautiful purple bulbs.

So far this year we have encountered no brown spots indicating the presence of disease.  This is a first for us in many many years.  We did have eight plants that displayed ground level rot at harvest so our concern about illness persists.  The peel and soak is time consuming  and tedious but we will likely continue it for the remaining seed stock this year.  Planting next year's garden at this time of falling leaves and cold nights lifts our spirits.  We are well aware of what is coming our way but the first crop of 2021 is in the ground.

Cutting Scapes

Garlic harvest should begin in one month from now.  Each year I try to delay digging in the hope that my crop will feature impressively huge bulbs and cloves.  Dying leaves relax their tight grip on the stem and rain water finds its way down inside the bulb wrappers.  This year the plan is to begin digging early.  In spite of the bizarre weather this year, the garlic now looks extremely good.  Putting large size aside, we are going for a disease free harvest.  A scape can be found amidst the tangle.  It is pointing toward the ground.

Not all growers believe that removing garlic scapes increases the size of the bulbs.  With the second method of reproduction gone, all of the plant's energy is directed to the bulb.  If left in place these leafless stalks will produce an incomplete flower and a cluster of tiny bulbils.  The advantage in planting them is that they carry no soil borne disease.  Their disadvantage is the number of years required to grow full sized bulbs.  Garlic scapes appear in farmer's markets as a food fit for humans.  They might pickle like green beans but we gave up canning years ago.  As a stir fry ingredient they would add zip but we now eat very little rice.  So in the compost they go.  Their scent will be unmistakable a year from now when the mature compost is screened.

Purple stripe is the name of this variety.  We use it as a marker plant to separate our other plantings of varieties that display only similar to each other appearances.  Purple stripe is shorter than the rest with a thicker stem.  Its leaves are broad and closely spaced.  A bluish cast in the leaves makes purple stripe stand out from the rest.  Harvested bulbs display beautiful colors making this a real winner.

White Bishop is the name we assigned to this variety.  Purchased from a local grower named Bishop, his name had to be matched with this variety.  Anyone that has attended the Saugerties Garlic Festival must have seen Mr. Bishop.  Most growers there displayed their crop from the back of a pickup truck. Charlie worked the crowd with a never ending carnival barker's banter.  He sold a great deal of his fine garlic and everyone knew that he was there.  I suspect that the actual name of this variety is Extra Hardy German White but definitely prefer to call it White Bishop.

Garlic Harvest 2014

Growing garlic in this part of the world comes with weather hurdles.  Late frosts can burn tender new growth but the real problem is with our July weather.  High daytime temperatures and humidity combine with frequent severe thunder storms to keep the plants constantly wet when their natural growth cycle signals that it is time to dry down.  Leaf structure promotes rot.  Where the leaf joins the stem a water holding cup is formed.  As the lower leaves begin to brown this water enters the stem and supports the growth of gray slimy mold inside of the stem.  Trapped water also finds its way down to the bulbs.

Two visually different varieties can be seen in the first photo.  The left most variety was purchased from a roadside stand located near the west side of Canadargaro  Lake.  I have purchased seed from her before but all of my plants died last year.  My newly purchased seed was found to be full of rot when I began to process it for planting.  Most of it was trashed but enough sound cloves were found for planting.  Sixty cloves were prepared using Daphne's method and sixty plants were just harvested.  Last fall I was reluctant to commit all of my seed garlic to the baths and peel but the results have made me a staunch believer.

The center variety is from my own seed.  A purple stripe, it grew great here last year.  These sixty cloves were planted without the baths and peel.  It is not yet ready for harvest so the actual outcome is not yet known but the plants look impressive now.

Look past the weeds and notice how the leaves join the stem.  The lowest two or three leaves have softened as they died and a pathway for water to enter the stem is now present.  Five or six still green leaves each form a tight wrapper around the bulb.  Moisture has in the past been found between the layers of wrappers.  Four consecutive days without rain signaled harvest time.

This variety was purchased from Lamb's Quarters Farm.  Here again I lost all of the plants from previous purchases.  The eight cloves deemed clean enough to plant were given the soak and peel treatment and all of them grew.  The upper three show the tan discoloration that signals moisture inside of the clove wrappers.  Seed will only be taken from the five white bulbs.  Cloves from the tan bulbs will be eaten if they prove to be sound.

Two days separate the photos of the same eight bulbs.  Purple stripes appear as the bulbs cure and they are visually striking.  One of the upper three tan bulbs shows spots of possible rot.  These three need to be moved away from the others although the other two both look good.

Freshly cleaned these bulbs from Canadarago Lake show pure white.  Their purple stripes will soon be evident.  At first glance these bulbs seem smallish.  They are small but many contain only four cloves.  Individual cloves are monsters by comparison to other hardneck garlics.  Since I prefer the bulbs with only four cloves, all of next year's seed will be taken from bulbs with exactly four cloves.  For now, the cleaning continues and the basement smells like a salami factory.