homestead

Garlic and More Garlic

I love garlic. Do you love garlic? My mom always started most meals with garlic sautéed in olive oil. I would rush into the kitchen asking what she was cooking because it “smells so good!” She would always laugh and say… garlic.. You have to at least triple the amount of garlic that each recipe calls for. At least. It delicious and it’s also really good for you. (Cut it up and let it sit for about 15 minutes before cooking to really help develop the allium in it!)

Last month, we planted 25 garlic plants. For those who don’t know, you plant a clove from certain bulbs of garlic. You can’t just plant garlic from the grocery store though. We instantly wished that we had ordered more, but most seed stores that I knew of were completely out of garlic.

I was watching Jill Winger’s video on garlic, and she mentioned where she had purchased hers from. I quickly searched for Filaree Garlic Farm and was able to order another pound of garlic to plant. What you see in the picture above is one pound of garlic. It ended up being 33 cloves that I planted! That means we will hopefully be harvesting 58 bulbs of garlic next year! Both varieties that we planted are stiffneck varieties. We planted music first and this batch was german white.

I would really be happy filling this entire 4′ X 12′ raised bed with garlic. It stores well, and we definitely wouldn’t let it go to waste. It felt really good to be digging in the soil again– though very cold. I need to get some gloves that work for farm life, I suppose. Any recommendations?

Yesterday was such a fun mail day. The garlic came (incredibly fast, I might add) along with the homestead planner that I’ve been chomping at the bit to have in my hands. It’s perfect! Our big seed catalog that I preordered came over the weekend, and we had a blast marking up all that we hope to plant next year or farther down the road. We are officially expanding our garden next year, quite significantly, and I am SO excited for it all!

We are blessed. We are so, so blessed that God allowed us to move into this home at the perfect time.