The garlic harvest is on! We’re growing five different varieties this season. One of them, Kindy Garlic, came from our farmhand Erin’s family. If you follow us on social media, Erin was the staff member we featured this past week. Her parents founded Joyfield Farm nearly four decades ago, so she has been gardening with her family her whole life!
We used to spread our harvested garlic plants out in the barn to cure, but during her first season on the farm, Erin taught us her family's way of processing garlic as it comes out of the field. Now, immediately after harvest, we trim the stem and roots and peel away one or two of the outer layers of the garlic bulb, leaving us with a clean head of garlic ready to cure (see our farmhand Michael showing off a crate of freshly cleaned bulbs in the picture). It's a labor-intensive process during a part of the season when time is in short supply, but we find having clean garlic ready to go to be very helpful when it's time to pack up CSA shares.
Garlic is one of those crops that connects one season to the next. We plant the cloves in fall, cover them with a layer of leaf mulch to protect them through winter, and wait for the plants to emerge in the spring (they are one of the first green things in the garden). The garlic grows through spring and early summer, and then we harvest when about half the leaves have died back on each plant. Most of our garlic will be cleaned and cured for storage, but we'll also start including fresh garlic in farm shares this week. While fresh garlic won’t last as long on your kitchen counter, it will make up for the shorter shelf life with loads of flavor. Enjoy!
