Now you know, my bride and I love garlic.
Since moving to the "dry" side of Wa. our garden has grown. This last year we froze and vacuumed packed the garlic to get it to last longer than dry cool storage method. She says it works great. Like freshly harvested.
The first pic is about 600 plants. Blossom, Zemo, Metechi and elephant. Seems as though Feb-March, that was the end of the garlic in storage. It doesn't last more than 8 months.
We still have the garlic we dried, and it is darn good but a lot of work.
We harvest in June and hang in the shed for 3-4 weeks to dry.
Last winter we decided to try to freeze a bunch for keeping. Break up the heads into cloves and place on a sheet pan to quick freeze the cloves. After frozen, pack into vac bags for the freezer. These have been in the freezer since July '10 and are about as good as it gets.
I am thinking, these will make excellent dried garlic also. At a more leisurely pace than would be in June.
This is our first year for shallots. I think they will be in the bags like the garlic too.
Any Northern growers here who plant shallots in October for the spring?
That is when we plant garlic and I am thinking it should also work for shallots.
Thanks for reading. Dave
Since moving to the "dry" side of Wa. our garden has grown. This last year we froze and vacuumed packed the garlic to get it to last longer than dry cool storage method. She says it works great. Like freshly harvested.
The first pic is about 600 plants. Blossom, Zemo, Metechi and elephant. Seems as though Feb-March, that was the end of the garlic in storage. It doesn't last more than 8 months.
We still have the garlic we dried, and it is darn good but a lot of work.
We harvest in June and hang in the shed for 3-4 weeks to dry.
Last winter we decided to try to freeze a bunch for keeping. Break up the heads into cloves and place on a sheet pan to quick freeze the cloves. After frozen, pack into vac bags for the freezer. These have been in the freezer since July '10 and are about as good as it gets.
I am thinking, these will make excellent dried garlic also. At a more leisurely pace than would be in June.
This is our first year for shallots. I think they will be in the bags like the garlic too.
Any Northern growers here who plant shallots in October for the spring?
That is when we plant garlic and I am thinking it should also work for shallots.
Thanks for reading. Dave