Harvesting Elephant Garlic~
Marlene ~ |
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When Kent was living here, about ten years ago, he planted a bed of
elephant garlic. After Kent left, the garlic was mostly ignored. Then I
discovered that moles don't
seem to bother our tomatoes and summer squash if I plant a clove of
garlic here and there between each plant. Little did I know how fast the
garlic would multiply.
"Now what to do with it all?" I wondered. Elephant garlic is a pretty plant, with a lovely seed head. The bugs and animals don't bother it. And it's easy to grow. So I contacted Ray, our local grocer, who put it out for his customers. Last year Ray sold 100 pounds for us. The dollars went toward the purchase of a big table saw for finishing Rivendell, our new community shelter. This is now the third year of pulling the garlic, cutting the stems off, and laying it in the shed to cure for a month or so. (The fun part this year was that Ron was here to help dig and carry the four buckets of garlic.) After Labor Day I'll weigh and bag another 75-100 pounds, one pound per zip-lock bag, for Ray to sell. Then I'll look for another "project or item" that could benefit from the sale of our elephant garlic. |
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Copyright © Light Morning 2001 |
