There's No Such Thing As Too Much Garlic
A few years ago, while visiting relatives in Canada, I noticed a giant basket of produce in a corner of the kitchen.
“Wow! Where’d you get all that garlic?” I asked.
“Grew it,” my cousin Robert replied.
“Really?”
“Sure. It’s simple. Just stick cloves in the ground just before the soil freezes, and new bulbs sprout in the spring. Only make sure you get local garlic – not from the supermarket, which may have come from California or China and wouldn’t grow in Connecticut.”
That’s all I thought about during the long drive home, and as soon as I arrived started calling local garden centers.
“Sorry. We harvested our garlic a few months ago and are out for the season.”
“Nope. All gone.”
“Just sold our last bulb.”
On a hunch, I called the Fiddleheads food co-op in New London and was directed to Hunts Brook Farm in Quaker Hill.
“You’re in luck,” farmer Rob Schacht told me over the phone. “I have a few pounds left.”
“I’ll be right there!”
Schacht sold me 5 pounds of bulbs that I placed in a paper bag on the passenger seat next to me. The heady aroma was overpowering.
Back home I counted 75 bulbs and put 50 aside for consumption over the winter. The remaining 25 I carefully divided into 100 cloves, and following Schacht’s instructions dipped them in a mild solution of bleach and water to kill off any potential fungus. Then using a mattock I dug a shallow furrow, placed each clove pointy-side up about 6 inches apart, buried them in a couple inches of soil, covered them with composted manure and topped everything with several inches of crushed leaves.
During the harsh winter I couldn’t imagine how anything could survive in frozen earth, but one morning in late March I noticed tiny green shoots poking through the snow. A miracle!
Turns out garlic is as easy to grow as dandelions, requiring virtually no maintenance.
By June the shoots had shot up about 3 feet, and then developed separate slender stalks called scapes that eventually extended another foot or so before, a couple weeks later, curling and wilting.
At this point you can trim the scapes and either sauté them or chop them up for salads. Either way they impart a delicate yet spicy flavor. If you let them grow, they eventually develop seed pods that are equally flavorful.
By this time, early July, you can dig up the garlic bulbs, carefully brush off dirt and let them dry in a cool, airy location. In past years I’ve tied bulb stalks together and hung them from the eaves, but you can just as easily place them on racks out away from the elements.
Using great restraint, I saved 50 bulbs from that first harvest and planted them in the fall. We ate the rest over the next few months – garlic spices up any number of soups, casseroles and sauces, but my favorite dish is sliced cloves sautéed in extra virgin olive oil, served with the oil over fresh pasta and grated Parmesan/Romano cheese.
I would not consume this meal immediately before delivering a State of the Union address or rehearsing the love scenes in a remake of Rudolph Valentino’s “The Sheik.” It helps if everybody who will be around you for the next few days joins in the dining.
The following year I planted 100 bulbs, ate a goodly quantity, and still wound up giving away a few dozen bulbs to friends.
Over the last couple years I’ve become the Johnny Appleseed of garlic, donating bulbs and encouraging friends to grow their own. If they all follow my example, southeastern Connecticut may one day become the garlic capital of the universe.
In the mean time, some 250 cloves that I planted last fall have sprouted, which will yield about 1,000 new cloves this summer. In fall, if I save half and plant 500 that will result in 2,000 the following spring, then 4,000, and on and on, like the Sorcerer’s Apprentice mop scene in “Fantasia.”
Right now garlic occupies about a quarter of the space in my garden; if I keep up this Manifest Destiny they will squeeze out the tomatoes, peppers, squash, kale, spinach, chard and other veggies, so it may be time to taper off.
Then again, part of me subscribes to the “too much is never enough” school of garlic cultivation.
I’ll let you know when or if I’ve reached the tipping point. At least I won’t have to be worried about being attacked by vampires.
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