My Home Among The Hills

I debated on facebook a bit earlier this week on how to spell garlicky…and I was informed of the correct spelling…so here I am to share it with you!  We planted garlic last fall (cause that’s when one plants garlic) and it has grown to maturity.  We planted 4 varieties.  I know we planted Metechi, Music, and Romanian Red.  The fourth variety is a mystery garlic which was presented to us as “wild garlic”.  I have no idea what it’s real name is, but it looks significantly different from the other types and produced nice sized, very pretty bulbs.  We’ll plant it again for sure assuming it stores and tastes good.

(Once you harvest garlic, you need to dry it out of the sun for a few weeks)

We’ve had a ton of rain in WV this spring and summer which has killed a large portion of the garden.  The garlic is about the only thing that thrived so I am really pleased we planted so much.  We’ll likely have to survive on it all winter since we won’t have many beans or peppers or salsa (a near staple at our house).  If anyone comes to visit, you had better “garlic up” before you come!

(These are the scapes from the “wild” garlic. They look very much like little heads of garlic as well. We’ll eat them sometime soon to find out!)

Ok, I’ll play sort of serious…we love garlic and there is nothing to beat fresh garlic.  I like it in just about everything and we use it about that often.  It’s great because it grows through the fall, winter and early spring and can be harvested in time to allow the gardener to plant cabbage or broccoli in its place (which is what we’ll do) for a later harvest.  If you have never tried growing garlic, you definitely should!

So, anyone ever seen this “wild garlic” or know anything about it?

I used to turn my nose up at just about anything vegetable related, but especially things like chow chow and relish – stuff whose components cannot be easily identified.  Here I am a bunch of years later wondering why in the world I was so silly.  We had a ton of green tomatoes left in the garden when we decided to put it to bed for the winter. 

I am not one to just dump the free food so we carried every green tomato into the kitchen.  Thanks to the folks at Texas A & M University, we found a way to use them without my having to give myself some sort of tomato facial or make a tomato+Mt Dew sport drink. 

 

 

CHOW-CHOW

1 peck (12 pounds) green tomatoes

8 large onions

10 green bell peppers

3 tablespoons salt

6 hot peppers (chopped)

1 quart vinegar

1 tablespoon allspice

1/4 teaspoon cloves

3 tablespoons dry mustard

Few bay leaves

1 3/4 cups sugar

cup horseradish (optional)

CHOP tomatoes, onions and peppers together and cover with the salt; let stand overnight. Drain, add the hot peppers, vinegar, spices (tied in cheese-cloth bag) and sugar; allow to boil slowly until tender (about 15 minutes). Add horseradish. Pack into sterilized Kerr jars to within inch of top. Put on cap, screw band FIRMLY TIGHT. Process in Boiling Water Bath 10 minutes.

Of course, chow chow is one of those mystery foods where you can really put just about anything into it.  I have seen it with cabbage before and I suppose you could shred squash or pumpkins too.  Anyhow, we made several jars of the stuff and it is really really good!

 

 

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I planted garlic this weekend. Last year I ordered several types of garlic from Seed Savers Exchange.  We planted Music, Shvelisi (Chesnok red), and German Extra Hardy.  They all grew well but only the Music really appealed to us flavor-wise.  I saved 5 heads of it from this summer’s harvest and replanted the cloves from those heads.  I also ordered some new varieties from The Garlic Store.  We planted Metechi and Romanian Red garlic in addition to the Music.  All together, we planted almost 70 cloves of garlic this year.  That is an increase of around 10-20 from last year.

So, in case you don’t know how to plant garlic, I’ll describe.  Garlic comes in heads that contain 4-12 cloves.  I dig a hole about 2-3 inches deep, spaced every 6-12 inches.  At the garden (i.e. not before) I separate the cloves of garlic and place them pointy end up in the bottom of the hole.  I replace the dirt and move on.  Typically, garlic is planted in the fall, usually around Columbus day.  Through the fall and winter, the garlic forms roots from the cloves and begins to form a new head.  Some folks plant garlic in the early spring but it just seems easier to me to plant them in the fall and forget about it.  My garlic is all hard-neck which means that each clove will send up a hard stalk in the spring that will persist until

harvest (I am sure there are other differences between hard and soft-neck also).  We harvest in July when the leaves from the hard stalks start to wither and turn brown.  We carefully dig the garlic and hang it to dry in the shed (leave the dirt still attached).   Once it dries for 4-6 weeks, we trim the leaves and roots and store in onion sacks in the cellar.  Easy-schmeesy!

  We use a ton of garlic in canning and cooking so it is likely that we will use every bit of this garlic.  Once you try fresh garlic in things, it is hard to beat.  The stuff is simple to grow and fairly cheap to get started.  It’s easy to save heads for the next season so your investment can be a one time deal if you find types you like.  There are several places that sell garlic but they usually sell out early so start looking in July or August.  What we plant is organic but that’s up to you.  Garlic is sterile and will not cross pollinate so you can plant different varieties side by side.