sprouting garlic

[tjg911]

my music is starting to sprout. each week more is sprouting and it's going to speed up with each passing week. i've stored this in the basement from late august when it was 70 degrees to december when the temperatures dropped to 48 - 52 degrees. it probably 52 degrees down there now.

i'm wondering if i put the sprouting bulbs into the fridge would it slow down the sprouting? my theory is it will keep the garlic at a constant cold vs it warming up slowly in the basement and i can use 1st. i doubt puting the non sprouting garlic will help stop sprouting and i think it may speed sprouting.

i'm sure it's sprouting just because it's coming out of dormancy but i have a lot of garlic left and it's a long time to harvest in late july!

[brokenbar]

I too have sprouts...I put my bucket into a closet in the dark and where it is a little more chilly which made sense to me but perhaps is futile? It is supposed to be 62 degrees at my ranch today...Spring Fever has me in it's deadly and enticing grip...

[TomNJ]

Hi Tom,

If you got eight months storage out of Music you did well! At this point I would put some bulbs in the refrigerator as an experiment, but would be more inclined to peel, chop, and freeze the rest for use until July.

I cure my garlic under my patio roof until planting time in November. At that point I chop and freeze all remaining bulbs that were not eaten or used for seed stock. The frozen garlic loses it's firm texture upon thawing, but retains its flavor and is great for cooking.

TomNJ

[salix]

Have recently heard that ideal storage conditions for garlic and onions are either cold (just above freezing) and dry OR very warm and dry. Apparently the usual temperature and humidity of basements is quite conducive to sprouting. I know that what I had stored in the unheated garage was doing just fine until I had to bring them inside when the temperature dropped to -38 C and I feared they would freeze. Now some are slowly starting to sprout ...

[tjg911]

Originally Posted by TomNJ

Hi Tom,

If you got eight months storage out of Music you did well! At this point I would put some bulbs in the refrigerator as an experiment, but would be more inclined to peel, chop, and freeze the rest for use until July.

I cure my garlic under my patio roof until planting time in November. At that point I chop and freeze all remaining bulbs that were not eaten or used for seed stock. The frozen garlic loses it's firm texture upon thawing, but retains its flavor and is great for cooking.

TomNJ

well so far 7 months but i hear ya! maybe i should just chop and freeze all the sprouting garlic as it sprouts and eat the unsprouted that is still firm/juicy. i wasn't sure if freezing it would render the taste bland. i wouldn't think it would but who knows. defrosting it to use raw/firm would change it to soft but it's still usable especially for cooking. just never having frozen it i was not sure what to expect. i put 2 LARGE cloves that have wide green sprouts bursting forth into the freezer last night as an experiment. from experience i know that once some start to sprout they all seem to be sprouting soon thereafter.

thanks.

[TomNJ]

Hi Tom,

I peel my cloves by shaking them vigorously for 30 seconds in two (inverted) large metal bowls. This knocks most of the skins off and makes the remaining ones easy to lift off with your finger nails.

Once peeled I chop them relatively fine and fill them into one quart ziplock baggies, about 6 bulbs (~50 cloves) per bag. I then squeeze out the air and flatten the chopped garlic in the bag to about 1/4" thick. Once these are stacked and frozen I call them "books" of garlic. To use, simply zip open the bag, break off the desired amount of garlic, re-zip and pop back in the freezer.

I freeze about 100+ bulbs of garlic into "garlic books" each November, and this usually lasts me until the next crop in July.

Tom NJ

[tjg911]

interesting tom. i wasn't sure what to put the chopped garlic into so i used a food storage container with a tight fitting lid. about 10 minutes after putting it into the freezer it occurred to me the plastic will absorb the smell and probably let it leak out. not good, so i got a 1 pint canning jar and put the garlic into that. really tight seal and glass won't absorb any smell.

i took all my sprouting cloves (maybe 13 to 16) and chopped them from coarse to fine. i am amazed at the amount i got! that 1 pint jar is 2/3 full! these were huge cloves, massive sized cloves, a few were bigger than a golf ball in size and i planted even larger cloves.... music can get pretty large cloves and bulbs. so i may have several pints of frozen garlic by the time i am done, good thing i have cases of canning jars!

i like the "book method" tom, breaking off what you want sounds pretty easy. i am hoping that i can use a spoon or if not then a sharp pointed paring knife to break out a chunk or two. either way freezing these is a good idea because if i tried to eat these as fast as they are sprouting i'd be eating huge amounts of garlic a day and be out in 5 or 6 weeks.

all i have left in the basement is music and chamiskuri. i have at least 50 bulbs of music, a few the size of a softball, which is 95% of the garlic, that's a lot but i grow enough to last until the next harvest. the chamiskuri is the other 5% that i bought from http://wegrowgarlic.com for seed that was not planted, obviously i planted the largest cloves. so that's a lot of small stuff but it shows no sign of sprouting.

i had to buy something in late august or early september as the local guy burned me - he never called me back about the nototka rose i wanted to buy that he promised me. i needed more to plant than i grew and wanted larger cloves but he left me high and dry. i was mad but it turned out to be a big break because that's why i got in touch with karen. i told her what i wanted and she suggested chamiskuri as they had sold most of their garlic by the time i realized that i needed to buy a softneck for longer storage than music. i learned a lot about softneck garlic from her, i assumed all softnecks were like the 2 i have grown - nootka rose and french pink. french pink does not store that well and has smallish bulbs. nootka rose stores for about 5 years (!) but has the typical small cloves that are impossible to peel, typical silverskin. this is where she pointed out artichoke varieties vs silverskins.

artichoke store well and are easy to peel plus this variety has large cloves. so i bought 4 or 5 pounds of chamiskuri and planted about 1/4 of the bed with it. i'm going to check with karen this year about sofneck varieties that are larger than chamiskuri that store a full year like chamiskuri does. i'm looking for long storage garlic because music just sprouts too soon. also if i find 2 or 3 softnecks that store well, have large cloves and peel easy, i'll cut back on how much music i plant, 1/2 the bed was music this year the bed is 4' X 15'. another good thing is if i find what i want in softneck varieties then i won't have to deal with scapes! cutting them is fun the 1st time but when you have 200+ plants in a 4' wide bed getting to the center scapes is hard and they get tangled up with each other using 6" spacing. the outer plants are easy to cut but those inner plants are a pain. i get probably 15 pounds of scapes and frankly i don't care for them all that much. i'll eat about 3-5" from the cut and compost the rest. imagine the bags of scapes in the fridge and this is at a time i have tons of stuff already in there from the garden.

tom

[TomNJ]

You don't like scapes!!!! I look forward to them each June, and even hold scape barbeques that friends line up for! Perhaps you are not cooking them properly - try shaking them in a plastic bag with some olive oil, salt and curry, and then grilling them until half brown. Drooooolll!!

I have eliminated all softnecks (Artichokes and Silverskins) from my garden. I find the cloves too small and hard to peel compared to Rocamboles and Porcelains. Also these consistently beat softnecks in garlic tastings, although I eat very little raw. I agree softnecks store longer, but since I freeze all my garlic in November, long storage is not a priority for me. This year I am growing Spanish Roja, Russian Red, Killarney Red, Estonian, German Red, and German White, 275 plants total.

I buy some of my garlic at the Saugarties Garlic Festival in September, and the rest from Karen at wegrowgarlic.com. Also Bloosquall, who just joined us here at TV, is a great source.

I suspect you will have one heck of a time chipping frozen garlic out or canning jars, not to mention the danger of breaking the jar with a wayward knife. Give the "book" method a try and see which works best for you.

TomNJ

[tjg911]

well i'll see how hard it is, i think a sharp knife should cut/chip out the garlic but that's just a guess! i see what you mean about storage, when you freeze it sprouting is no problem. this allows you to grow romcamboles (sp ?) and have them to spring, this type doesn't store too long.

[neoguy]

I don't think anyone mentioned drying garlic. We peel our garlic the same as TomNJ, 2 metal bowls, works great, not perfect but it does about 90% of the job.
Then, cut into approximately 1/8" slivers and dry in a dehydrator. When dry, we store them in mason jars as garlic chips and only grind as needed, that helps retain the flavor longer.

[tjg911]

Originally Posted by TomNJ

You don't like scapes!!!!

I suspect you will have one heck of a time chipping frozen garlic out or canning jars, not to mention the danger of breaking the jar with a wayward knife. Give the "book" method a try and see which works best for you.

TomNJ

i don't care for scapes as i have a ton of stuff to eat from the garden when the scapes are cut. i've sauted them and they are ok, i don't have a grill so that method is out. i give a lot away. what i really would like is ramps but they are out in april and due to ticks i no longer collect them.

i tried chipping garlic out of a jar tonight and it was pretty easy, my paring knife is sharp so it was just cutting out a chunk which was not too bad.

[bloosquall]

TJG, you should have taken me up on my offer to sell you some Nootka Rose last fall, I still have a bunch of them and all rock hard still. As I recall you got it from somebody else closer to you...or maybe not as it sounds. Music being a porcelain is not a long storing bulb, you want an artichoke like Lorz or most any of the Silver Skins

-bloo

[salix]

Bloo - are the cloves of Nootka Rose very small? Or a reasonable size (for peeling purposes)? What of the artichokes or silverskins in general?

[bloosquall]

Hi Salix,

Nootka Rose isn't a very big bulb to start with, I've had some 2"ers but that's a big one. The cloves are nothing like a big Porcelain in size. I believe the flavor or a Silver Skin is far superior to any Porcelain though..I have a bunch of the much sought after Rosewood Porcelains. It's a nice bulb, decent flavor but it's still a Porcelain.

The next size up would be the Silver Rose, pretty much identical just bigger. I have seen some much larger Silver Skins around, I know a man 40 miles from me who has some. He calls it "high desert late" I haven't ever seen that name from the big boys so I don't know where this comes from. I do know I'm going to start a few this year. There is a rare one called Rose Duvar that is a larger clove Silver Skin. I picked up enough last year from Karen to plant 192 of them. That may be a good choice for you if you're looking mainly for clove size and still have good flavor.

Most artichokes have a much milder flavor, bigger easier to peel but not very impressive. I still have a few Lorz artichokes in good shape but are getting soft. I don't cook with garlic, I eat them raw to savor the all the goodness.

-bloo

[salix]

Bloo - thank you very much for all the information, much appreciated. We eat our garlic both ways, cooked and raw (I like the 'bite' of them raw), but you NEED to use them in your cooking for the flavour!