Garlic and Me

It was a tool catalog that taught me how and when to plant and harvest garlic. Lee Valley, a mail-order company based in Canada, was a go-to catalog for my wood-working wonder of a partner. Years ago, while touting some gardening wonder implement or another, the company included a half page on garlic growing.  I can do this!!

Garlic is the last thing I plant each season. I start thinking about planting around the fall equinox.  I look over the garden and plan next year in my mind's eye and then decide what small space (about three yards square) I will choose to bed the garlic in over the winter.  I have until frost to get them in so I am leisurely about this.

I have saved back a few robust garlic heads from my July harvest. I have also pestered the garlic seller at farmer's market to share his favorites for me to try. And then in a whirl of activity, I break the heads into individual cloves, push them about an inch deep and 2-3" apart and ten minutes later, my year's worth of garlic is planted.  I put a thick mulch about 12" deep on top of them and mark the area.

The garlic sleeps the winter away.

By the spring equinox, the shoots are up; by summer solstice the scapes are ready and by July the stalks are brown and sere and my garlic is ready to come out of the ground.  A quick tug, a rub to get off the clinging dirt, a gentle braid of three heads with a loop at the top and they are ready to dry.

Our old rake handle (seems appropriate given where I learned to grow garlic) will hold the harvest under a protected roof to dry for a few weeks. Then I'll cut off the stems and put them in the pantry. I dream of meals ahead.....

And So It Begins...

Today, I went to the garden and dug my first garlic of the season.  I love nothing better than pulling these first delicate slips. It means spring really is here and the growing season is upon us.

Last fall, I buried many individual cloves and covered them heavily with straw. Since then, these  little beauties have been sleeping away the winter.  The first hint of light and warmth brings their shoots up above the ground.

When I dig them, the clove is wet and withered. I peel off that layer, and inside there is a thin shoot, looking much like scallion.

This first garlic is sweet and mild enough to put raw in salads.  Tonight, we're making Miniera, a Brazilian dish that marries thinly sliced collard greens with bacon (yes, greens and bacon - a match made in heaven). A few slices of this sprightly spring garlic serves as a perfect mild flavor maid of honor.

Collard Greens Miniera

1/2 # collard greens, halved lengthwise and stems and center ribs discarded
2 slices of bacon, finely chopped

Stack the collard leaf halves and roill cross-wise into a cigar shape. Cut crosswise into very thin slices (1/8"). Cook bacon til crisp. Add collards, tossing to coat and cook until just bright green (about 1 minute. Season with salt and serve.

Gourmet Magazine January 2001

Seeds and Gardens

Growing our own food has almost always been part of my life. My parents had a big garden in our city backyard for our big nine-member family. I loved planting. My dad and I would go to the hardware store where they had jars of seeds, the littlest bags in the world and an old fashioned scale. I was his helper as he went down the list and picked and weighed out the seeds we needed.

Then home to plant. Dad had a hoe with measurements marked off on the wooden shaft. He would lay it out and put a stake with string in the ground. One of us kids would unroll the string to the other end of of the about-to-be-hoed row and he would guide us - "a little to the right"; "more to the left" to the spot to plunge it into the ready soil for a straight row. He hoed, we sowed. And then all those seeds and plants? Why, they growed! Weeding, picking and garden chores were an all-family affair.

Lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes, carrots, green and wax beans were all part of "going out to the garden" to get some of the food for supper. Snacks during harvest season were crunchy, juicy beans or warm tomatoes picked right that second. I missed that as a young apartment-dwelling adult. When we bought our first house in spring, making a garden was our first order of business and has remained so at every place we've lived.

We have grown this, that and the next thing over the years. Once we started regular CSA shares, we still planted. Our garden now features whatever I can't get enough of in our CSAs or what I want on hand as much as I can.  Spring/summer garlic, onions, fresh herbs, cucumbers, tomatoes, chard, sorrel.  The winter seed catalogs have me dreaming of what tasty treat we will try this year.

Each time I plant a seed or bulb or plant in the warmed earth of spring or the cooling soil of fall, I feel like a maker. It speaks of ancient rhythms that tie me to nature and her cycles. Growing even a small part of the food we eat brings an amazing satisfaction.

I am so happy and excited to see a growing passion again for growing food. Our library is beginning a seed saving library in partnership with Seed Savers and planning workshops to teach and reach out to people on sustainability and gardening. I can hardly wait!