Hardneck garlic has a more complex, richer, spicier flavor that is more ‘garlicky’ than the supermarket types. We show you how to grow your own great garlic!
Home-made sun-dried tomatoes are amazing. Just cracking open a jar perfumes the room with their unmistakably rich fragrance, and they are easy to make.
There are three excellent reasons to grow your own garlic:
Garlic grows from the individual cloves, forming a bulb divided into separate cloves held together and protected by layers of a papery skin. As with most gardening, the key to superior results is in the details, but it isn’t difficult to have impressive looking (and tasting) garlic.
Normal yield is about 6 to 7 times the amount planted, so a bulb with 6 or 7 cloves should grow another 6 bulbs. To determine approximately how much garlic you will harvest, use the average number of clovers per head as a good starting point. Another way to estimate is one ½ lb. order of garlic can produce 3 to 3 ½ lbs. when harvested.
This article is about hardneck garlic – varieties that produce a long flowering stem from the center of the bulb. Hardneck garlic tends to have a more complex flavor profile than the standard supermarket variety, which is almost universally softneck. It is richer, spicier, and more “garlicky”, with larger cloves that are easier to peel.
Hardneck Garlic Plants
Garlic needs full sun to grow the best bulbs, so choose an area that gets full sun all day. Partial shading results in smaller bulbs.
Soil fertility and quality are key for large bulbs and delicious flavor, as garlic has a shallow root system and needs loose soil to grow and expand properly. Growing a cover crop like our Garden Cover Up mix two or more months before planting garlic prepares the soil beautifully, often needing little to no extra preparation. Adding a layer of compost in late spring to early summer helps feed the soil as well.
Gourmet garlic growers will often spend one to two years preparing the soil in a new section to ensure they plant into the most fertile, loose, and biologically active soil possible to get the biggest and most flavorful garlic around. Don’t skimp on your soil preparation!
Freshly planted garlic needs thorough watering for the first 3 days to start the growing process. Afterward, water like any other root vegetable – don’t let the soil dry out, but make sure it isn’t wet either.
Garlic is traditionally planted in the fall, but the ideal time depends on where you live. A good rule of thumb is to plant garlic in the fall for larger bulbs over a longer time and in spring for smaller bulbs but a shorter harvest time.
Northern gardeners in colder climates should plant 4 – 6 weeks before your usual first hard frost to give the garlic time to get established and put on some green growth. Cover the green leaves with a thick protective layer of mulch for insulation about a week or two before the first frost – a foot thick is not too much. Good mulch materials are lightweight insulation like straw or shredded leaves.
Remove about half of the mulch in the spring as the weather warms up, adding the mulch to your compost pile. The garlic will emerge from dormancy and continue growing, while the mulch decomposes and feeds the growing bulbs.
Those in more moderate climates that don’t see single-digit winter temperatures have more flexibility in their planting schedule. Garlic grows in cooler temperatures than most other root vegetables, so planting can be up to 2 – 3 weeks before the first hard frost. Mulch as above, but only 3 – 4 inches are needed.
Gardeners in warmer climates that rarely see freezing winter temperatures should vernalize – or chill – their garlic for at least 4 – 6 weeks before planting to ensure a good sized bulb is formed. This replicates the freezing winter weather of the colder climates. Planting in fall takes advantage of the cooler weather and gives you more time for the garlic to mature before the late spring heat arrives.
It is interesting to note that serious garlic growers often vernalize their planting stock, no matter where they live. Experience has shown that chilling at around 50°F for even 2 weeks produces larger, denser, better-tasting bulbs, no matter where you are.
Music Hardneck Garlic Bulb and Cloves
Separate the bulbs into individual cloves just before planting to avoid drying out the cloves. Remove the outer skin and pull the bulb apart without breaking the small section of roots – known as the basal plate – at the bottom. Try to keep the skin intact and make sure to keep the basal plate intact on each clove, otherwise, they won’t grow.
In colder climates plant the clove 2 – 4 inches deep and in milder climates about 1 inch deep. Plant the basal plate down with the stem upward. Plant the cloves 4 – 8 inches apart to give them room to mature with sufficient nutrients without competing with their neighbor. Space rows at least 18 inches apart, or what makes sense for your garden set up to allow for mulching, weeding, and adding compost easily.
Garden Cover-Up Mix
Weed management in garlic is especially critical since the crop is often in the ground 8 to 9 months, spanning two normal growing seasons. Some weeds grow best in hot weather, while others prefer the cooler seasons, and your garlic is growing through both. Uncontrolled weeds can reduce garlic harvest by up to 50%!
The best, most effective methods start a couple months before the garlic is planted. There are two methods – cover crops and weed cultivation.
The first method uses cover crops planted 2 – 3 months before the garlic goes in to choke out weeds and improve the soil fertility. Let the flowers bloom, then cut the stalks down to create a green mulch and allow them to decay for a month, then plant your garlic right into the residue. Your garlic grows and matures as the organic materials both above and below the soil decompose, feeding the garlic.
The second method lightly cultivates the top two inches of the soil, bringing weed seeds to the surface and then watering well. The weed seeds germinate in a few days and they are allowed to grow to about 2 – 3 inches tall before they are tilled under. This process repeats itself two to three times which exhausts the readily available weed seed bank in the top of the soil before planting your garlic.
Both methods work, but only the cover crop approach improves the soil fertility while reducing weeds.
As the plants resume growing in the spring, make sure they don’t flower, which takes energy away from bulb production. Clip the young flower stalk – also known as a scape – just above the plant and enjoy their delicate flavor in light spring dishes.
Once the plants are mature and the topmost leaves start drying out, reduce the moisture to help the bulbs mature and begin drying down. The top couple of inches should be barely moist so there is enough at the root zone to feed the bulb as it finishes growing and maturing.
Harvest the bulbs when there is an average of six green leaves on each plant. This is the optimum time to harvest and start the dry-down process to ensure there are enough wrappers or skins left to protect the bulb. Each leaf represents one wrapper or skin, and the goal is to have 3 – 4 skins left for protection after dry-down.
Harvest in the cool of the morning or late afternoon for the best flavor and quality. Exposure to hot sun or soil for even 10 – 20 minutes immediately after harvesting can effectively cook the garlic and ruin it. Pull by hand or gently dig them up, remove any dirt and spread them out in a shady, well-ventilated area to cure.
Curing Hardneck Garlic
Garlic cures into a better, more flavorful product that stores longer if it’s in a consistent environment without large temperature and humidity fluctuations. Depending on your conditions, curing can take from two to four weeks, but the wait is well worth it!
Trim the tops and roots and clean the bulbs after the curing is mostly finished to protect the bulbs from disease. The exception is if you are in a humid climate, then trim the roots immediately after harvest and monitor the tops to make sure they are drying down to avoid mold. If they remain moist, then trim the tops as well.
Hardneck Garlic in Pesto
Hardneck garlic is highly valued for its complex and robust flavors, making it an essential ingredient for gourmet restaurants and innovative chefs. It pairs well with many recipes, from raw in fresh pesto to fermented in chile pastes, as well as in soups, stews, stir-fries, and pan-roasted vegetables.
For an idea of how versatile our garlic is, visit the Recipes section of our website and click on the Garlic ingredient for a list of recipes to try!
Sun-dried tomatoes are amazing. Just cracking open a jar perfumes the room with their unmistakably rich fragrance, making the dead of winter smell like the peak of late summer. They wake up many dishes with their explosion of intensely sweet and tart flavors. Preserving them uses the simplest techniques with only two ingredients, and they last an extremely long time without needing refrigeration. There is no easier way to capture and intensify their flavor and aroma.
You may not have experienced the full flavors if you’ve only tasted the store-bought offerings unless they were imported from Italy.
To understand the rise and fall of sun-dried tomatoes in America, read “What Ever Happened to Sun-Dried Tomatoes?”, then come back here.
Did you catch the part where commercial tomato growers jumped into the game once sun-dried tomatoes were popular? Using commodity tomatoes that were bred for uniform shape and tolerance to shipping (that’s actually one of the breeding characteristics!) simply ruined the market, due to their utter lack of flavor.
That’s not to say there isn’t a place for sun-dried tomatoes in your kitchen today – there is, and they are still just as delicious as you remember – maybe even more so if they come out of your garden!
If you’ve got a lot of tomatoes on the way, preserving them by sun drying or dehydrating and storing in olive oil allows you to put up 50 lbs. of tomatoes into a couple of jars with little work.
Let’s walk through just how easy and simple it really is!
Sliced Fresh San Marzano Tomatoes
The best tomatoes for sun drying are the best-tasting ones – grown in rich, fertile soil giving them the sweetest, most complex flavors. Paste tomatoes are traditionally used just for this reason – they have a sweeter taste that is intensified by the drying process, giving them their signature complex sweet/tart flavors.
Be careful, though – Italians use San Marzano tomatoes almost exclusively because they are sweet to begin with, unlike the Roma tomatoes used by the American tomato paste market, which are more acidic and take on bitter overtones once dried. The larger San Marzano Redorta tomato works very well also.
Remember – starting with the best quality means you’ll wind up with the best flavors!
Pick fully ripe, almost soft tomatoes then wash, de-stem and slice them, removing any bad spots. Fully ripe fruit have a richer, more fully developed flavor to start with.
Arrange them on a flat surface like a dehydrator sheet or a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. They can be slightly touching but you want to keep good airflow between the tomato halves.
Drying the tomatoes
The original sun-dried tomatoes were just that – dried in the sun on rooftops then threaded on garlands or preserved in olive oil for the next season to add flavor to dishes when there were very few fresh vegetables available.
Most gardeners don’t have the space to spread out dozens of trays to sun-dry their tomatoes, so we improvise. A dehydrator works wonders, drying 30 lbs. or more of fresh tomatoes in a batch. We use an Excalibur that we’ve had for almost 20 years – set the temperature to 80-90°F, turn the fan on and check on the progress every few hours. The low temperature allows for a more even drying and doesn’t cook the fruit, leaving you with funky flavors. It’s a slow process so you don’t have to babysit. A full load usually takes overnight and we stop it when the tomatoes are leathery but still pliable and not crisp.
Sun-dried tomatoes ready for use
This is how much the tomato slices shrink in drying, and how 30 lbs. of fresh paste tomatoes can fit into a few jars.
Once they are dried to your liking, simply gather them up and determine what size and how many jars you need. They make exceptional, incredibly thoughtful gifts for the gourmand or serious cook in your life, so we decided to make up a few half-pint jars for gifts and half-gallons for our own use.
Sun-dried tomatoes packed in olive oil
Pack them tightly into clean jars and add olive oil to fill, making sure to completely submerge the tomatoes, screw the lid on tight and you’re done! Use the best quality olive oil you can source – organic is preferable, as it becomes a component of the flavors you are working to preserve.
Fresh sun-dried tomatoes are beautiful and delicious in their own right, ready to enjoy in a myriad of dishes from bruschetta and simple fresh pasta dishes to brightening hummus and cream cheese spreads to showcasing their delightful flavors in simple scrambled eggs in the morning.
Aged Sun-Dried Tomatoes
Sun-dried tomatoes keep a long time, much longer than you might expect. They go through a process similar to aging balsamic vinegar or wine, becoming richer, deeper, and more complex in their flavor profiles while gaining a surprising aromatic intensity. Being submerged in olive oil seals them off from the air and allows them to mature and age.
We discovered a hidden half-pint recently that was – let’s just say a few years old – in perfectly good shape and delicious. On opening the jar for the first time, the room was immediately filled with the intense, rich scent of aged tomatoes. It’s difficult to describe, but we were immediately hungry for something – anything – with those sun-dried tomatoes in it!
After tasting the aged sun-dried tomatoes, we will be putting up a jar or two strictly for aging each season from now on!
2018 Terroir Seeds | Underwood Gardens
Grow Great Hardneck Garlic at Home
Hardneck garlic has a more complex, richer, spicier flavor that is more ‘garlicky’ than the supermarket types. We show you how to grow your own great garlic!
Make the Best Sun-Dried Tomatoes at Home
Home-made sun-dried tomatoes are amazing. Just cracking open a jar perfumes the room with their unmistakably rich fragrance, and they are easy to make.