Garlic Harvested, dried, cleaned, stored
Garlic drying stands
The close-to-400 bulbs of 49 various types of garlic were harvested over a couple of weeks and hung up to dry in four drying stands underneath a lean to shelter.
After a few weeks, they were taken down, cleaned, measured, weighed and put away into the cold room.
Apparently we will be having over 55 types for planting later this fall and will need more garden bedspace now and more drying racks next summer!
Last fall we used a “dibbler”, a hole making wooden template that made 5″ deep holes, 6″ apart with 6 in a row.
It also had a spacer to the next row that was 8″ apart. That we decided to increase to 10″, to give better spacing for growth but moreso to help keep track of the varieties.
The drying stands are made from 2″x4″ on the ends with a pair of 1″x2″‘s across each of three levels. A screw in the middle allows the gap to be made bigger or smaller. The bulbs go in and hang to air dry, out of direct sun, in a breeze.
We mark borders between types with tape and tags.
When measuring we use a size template similar to the one shown here:
Garlic sizer
This gives us hard numbers to compare type to type and year to year, of how well things are going, how the watering was, the winter, the amount of fertilizer, etc.