Garlic is such a great vegetable! It’s a star in the kitchen, it’s healthy AND it’s easy to cultivate. Don’t believe me? Then read on: in this post, I’ll not only give you an overview of the different types of garlic but show you exactly how and when to plant garlic. Following these steps an abundant harvest is inevitable!
Garlic varieties
Garlic is divided into two groups: hardneck and softneck. Hardnecks develop a flower stalk (a “scape”), softnecks don’t.
Softneck varieties usually have a milder flavour, are better suited for warmer climates and can be stored for a prolonged time.
Hardneck garlic, on the other hand, has a more intense flavour and a shorter shelf life. It’s generally better for colder climates.
I always cultivate both varieties.
How to find good garlic varieties for your garden
It seems easy to buy some garlic in the supermarket and plant it in your garden. However, supermarket garlic usually is a softneck variety and comes from sites in very warm climates. If your climate is cold, however, store-bought cloves won’t grow very well in your garden.
Instead, look for local seed manufacturers. Their cloves are well-adjusted to your climate. Or you have friends who already cultivate garlic and will give you a few cloves for planting.
I always set the largest bulbs aside and use their cloves for planting. That way, I develop and gather my own garlic cloves that are perfectly adjusted to my garden conditions.
Preparing your garden for planting
First of all, select an area that gets at least 6 – 8 hours of sunlight full sunlight per. Also, drainage should be good to prevent waterlogging, which can cause rot.
The soil should not be too light. A healthy loamy soil is best for garlic as it retains moisture well.
Garlic doesn’t like weeds (who does?), so make sure that the bed you want to cultivate garlic in is weed-free.
Also, mixing in compost or rotten manure won’t hurt. It’ll help to improve the soil structure, drainage and fertility.
Planting garlic: step-by-step
If you follow this step-by-step guide, you’ll be rewarded with an abundance of garlic next summer!
When to plant garlic
There are two possibilities when to plant garlic:
Spring
You can plant garlic cloves in March / April. They will develop fine bulbs, albeit small ones that you can harvest in the same year.
Autumn
Planting garlic cloves at the beginning to mid-October will give them a headstart. They’ll grow until it becomes too cold, overwinter and restart growing in spring. That way, the bulbs will be much larger and that’s why I recommend planting garlic in autumn.
Autumn vs. spring planting
As I said before, you can plant garlic in spring as well, but the bulbs will stay smaller and they cannot be stored for long. Also, you’ll be busy in spring with all the gardening tasks.
Planting garlic in autumn not only makes your life easier but also gives you a much more substantial harvest with a prolonged storage time.
How to plant garlic
The easiest and most common way is to break up the bulb and stick the single cloves with the tip facing upwards about 4 – 6 cm (1,5 – 2,5 inches) into the soil. Loosen the soil a bit before planting, for example with a garden fork. A dibble can help with preparing the holes into which the cloves are to be set.
Plant garlic in rows with a distance of 15 cm between cloves and 25 cm between rows.
Break up the bulb so that you get out the single cloves.
Always plant garlic with the tip facing upwards
Garlic is a great companion for many other plants, for example tomatoes and strawberries but also flowers.
Watering and mulching
A great advantage of planting garlic in autumn is that usually, the soil is very moist. That way, we don’t have to water the cloves at all. If it’s very dry when planting, water the rows with the freshly set cloves.
I don’t water my garlic but depending on your climate it may be necessary to do so.
If you’ve followed me for some time you know that I’m a huge fan of mulching. When you’ve planted your garlic, I recommend mulching it to protect the cloves from extreme cold and keep the soil moist and weed-free. However, garlic can develop fungal and viral diseases when mulched too thickly, so make sure that the mulch layer is not thicker than about 3 – 5 cm.
Caring tips for spring
When the air grows warmer in spring, remove the mulch from your garlic so that the soil can warm up.
Remove weeds as they will compete with the garlic for nutrients and water.
If the soil is compacted, gently loosen it around the garlic plants to improve drainage.
Keep the garlic well-watered, especially as it gets warmer, but don’t over-water it.
A healthy dose of a nitrogen-emphasized fertiliser, for example stinging nettle manure, provides nutrients in spring.
Keep an eye out for pests and diseases like thrips or mould. Remove ill plants immediately to keep pests and diseases at bay.
These beauties are the stakes. If you let them on the plant, they’ll burst into bloom which is quite a pretty sight. However, if you want to get large bulbs, I recommend cutting them off.
If you cultivate hardneck garlic, remove the scapes (i.e. flower stalks) as they form so that all the energy goes into the bulb and thus enhances growth. You can use the scapes in your kitchen just like garlic. I like them best in a light cream sauce on freshly cooked pasta…
When the soil has warmed up and it gets warmer and drier, put on a thin layer of mulch again to keep the plants moist and weeds at bay.
Harvesting and storing garlic
You can harvest garlic continually, beginning in late spring, and use the whole plant, including the green stems, in the kitchen. Usually, however, garlic is harvested 8 – 10 months after planting, depending on your variety and climate.
That gives us a harvesting period of late June to early July for hardnecks and mid to late July for softnecks.
How do you know when garlic is ready to be harvested?
You know that the garlic is ready for harvesting when half to two-thirds of the leaves have turned yellow and the bulbs are still closed. If you wait too long, the bulbs may open up which reduces their storage time.
To harvest, loosen the soil around the garlic with a garden fork and pull out the bulbs. Clean up the garlic right on the bed by carefully removing the outer skin which is usually already very loose. That way there will be no soil on the bulbs and they are ready to cure.
For curing, put the garlic into bundles that you hang in a dry place with good air circulation for about two weeks. This drying process is essential for storage. If you have a canopy at your house or garage or even a balcony that’s protected from rain, that’s an ideal place.
Storing garlic for long-term use
When your garlic bulbs are dry, you can twist them into a plait and hang them in your kitchen. Another method is to remove the stalks and store them in airy baskets. The best storage place for garlic is dry, cool and dark with good air circulation. In these conditions, garlic may be stored for up to 8 months.
So come and join the garlic-planting club! This comprehensive guide shows you all the steps for a large garlic plant next summer. Envious stares from the neighbours included.
Have you already cultivated garlic? Share your experiences (and further tips) in the comments.
After a year with almost no fruits due to an arid spring and summer, this year provides us with abundant berries, apples, plums and pears! Every evening I peel and slice fruits to preserve them for winter. I’ve already made apple sauce, dry-canned apples and started apple vinegar from the scraps. But today, I’ll show you how to make a deliciously-tasting pear jam.
Pear Jam
Yield: 7 – 8 glasses à 200 ml
Ingredients
1 kg pears 1 kg jam sugar 1 lemon (juice) 1 vanilla pod 2 tbsp pear brandy
Instructions
1. Prepare your jars by rinsing them and the lids with boiling water. Let them dry on a rack. 2. Peel the pears, remove the cores and quarter them. Chop them into tiny quarters and put them into a pot. (You can use the peels and cores for making pear vinegar, just like this recipe for apple vinegar.) 3. Squeeze the lemon and add its juice to the pears. 4. Cut open the vanilla pod lengthwise and scrape the vanilla pulp out with your knife. Add both, the pulp and the pod to the pears. 5. Add the sugar to the pot and mix everything well together. Let it rest for 24 hours.
6. After that time, remove the vanilla pod and add the pear brandy. 7. Bring the mixture to a boil while constantly stirring. Make sure that it doesn’t stick to the bottom of the pot. 8. Once the mixture comes to a boil, set your timer and let it boil for four minutes. 9. To test if it’s ready, ladle a spoonful of the jam onto a plate. Tilt the plate so that the hot jam runs across its surface. It should thicken as it runs across the cool plate. 10. When the jam is ready, ladle it into the clean jars up to about one cm under the brim. Close the lids tightly and put the jars upside down onto a dish towel on the counter. Let them cool down and label the jars.
Pear Jam Variations
Pear jam is not as common as strawberry jam, which is a pity! It has a wonderfully fruity, yet refined taste due to the vanilla pod and the brandy and you’ll surely impress your guests when you present it at breakfast.
If you want to experiment with the flavour, you could for example add
one teaspoon of cinnamon and a pinch of clove and nutmeg to the pear mixture or
50 g of marzipan or
2 – 3 stalks of either mint, lemon balm, thyme or rosemary to the pear mixture. Remove the stalks before cooking the jam.
Pear jam will last at least a year when stored in a cool and dry place. After opening the jar, store it in the fridge and consume it within two weeks.
Prepare your jars by rinsing them and the lids with boiling water. Let them dry on a rack.
Peel the pears, remove the cores and quarter them. Chop the quarters into tiny cubes and put them in a pot. (You can use the peels and cores to make pear vinegar, just like this recipe for apple vinegar).
Squeeze the lemon and add its juice to the pears.
Cut open the vanilla pod lengthwise and scrape the vanilla pulp out with your knife. Add both, the pulp and the pod to the pears.
Add the sugar to the pot and mix everything well together. Let it rest for 24 hours.
After that time, remove the vanilla pod and add the pear brandy.
Bring the mixture to a biol while constantly stirring. Make sure that it doesn't stick to the bottom of the pot.
Once the mixture come to a boil, set your timer and let it boil for 4 minutes.
To test if it's ready, ladle a spoonful of the jam onto a plate. Tilt the plate so that the hot jam runs across its surface. It should thicken as it runs across the cool plate.
When the jam is ready, ladle it into the clean jars up to about one cm under the brim. Close the lids tightly and put the jars upside down onto a dish towel on the counter. Let them cool down and label the jars.
Notes
Pear Jam Variations
Pear jam is not as common as strawberry jam, which is a pity! It has a wonderfully fruity, yet refined taste due to the vanilla pod and the brandy and you’ll surely impress your guests when you present it at breakfast.If you want to experiment with the flavour, you could for example add
one teaspoon of cinnamon and a pinch of clove and nutmeg to the pear mixture or
50 g of marzipan or
2 - 3 stalks of either mint, lemon balm, thyme or rosemary to the pear mixture. Remove the stalks before cooking the jam.
Pear jam will last at least a year when stored in a cool and dry place. After opening the jar, store it in the fridge and consume it within two weeks.
Usually, when we preserve fruits or vegetables by canning, we add some liquid (usually water) to fill up the jars. But did you know that you can also preserve apples by dry-canning them? These dry-canned apples are the basis for a quick apple strudel or the filling for an apple cake. You can even use it for a crumble.
All you need is a water-bath canner, jars with lids and some apples. I recommend at least one kilogram, but the more the better.
Preparation
Prepare your jars by washing them and the lids in hot water or the dishwasher. Put the jar lids and rings or the rubber bands in a pot and cover them with water. Bring the water to a boil and let it all cook for five minutes. Remove the lids, rings and/or rubber bands from the boiling water and put them onto a clean dish towel on the kitchen counter. Let them dry.
Instructions
Rinse the apples in your sink to wash off any dirt. Also, remove any leaves, grass or other residues. Then peel them, cut out the cores and any rotten parts and quarter them. You can use the apple scraps for making apple vinegar. For that purpose, it’s great to have three bowls at hand: one for the apple quarters, one for the “good” scraps for making apple vinegar and one for the rotten parts and wormy cores to discard.
Half the quarters lengthwise and chop the apples into slices of about 3 millimetres. When you’ve chopped all the apples, fill them tightly into the prepared jars. Make sure that there’s as little room left in between the slices as possible. Leave about one inch of headspace. Before closing the lids, make sure that the rim of the jar is clean. That’s best ensured by dipping a clean cloth (for example a towel) into some vinegar and wiping the rims clean. Seal the jars with the lids.
Dry-canning apples
Fill the water bath canner with as much (cold to lukewarm!) water as indicated in the instructions. Put the jars into the canner, ensuring enough space so they don’t touch. Heat the canner to 100 °C. Once it has reached that temperature, let it simmer for 40 minutes. When time’s up, remove the jars with a glass lifter from the water bath canner and put them onto a dishcloth on the counter. Let the glasses cool down slowly.
Stored in a cool, dry place, dry-canned apples have a shelf life of at least two years.
Dry-canned apples
Did you know that you can preserve apples by dry-canning them? These dry-canned apples are the basis for a quick apple strudel or the filling for an apple cake and even crumble.All you need is a water-bath canner, jars with lids and some apples. I recommend at least one kilogram, but the more the better.
Prepare your jars by washing them and the lids in hot water or the dishwasher. Put the jar lids and rings or the rubber bands in a pot and cover them with water. Bring the water to a boil and let it all cook for five minutes. Remove the lids, rings and/or rubber bands from the boiling water and put them onto a clean dish towel on the kitchen counter. Let them dry.
Rinse the apples in your sink to wash off any dirt. Also, remove any leaves, grass or other residues.
Then peel the apples, cut out the cores and any rotten parts and quarter them. You can use the apple scraps for making apple vinegar.
Half the quarters lengthwise and chop the apples into slices of about 3 millimetres. When you’ve chopped all the apples, fill them tightly into the prepared jars. Make sure that there’s as little room left in between the slices as possible. Leave about one inch of headspace. Before closing the lids, make sure that the rim of the jar is clean. That's best ensured by dipping a clean cloth (for example a towel) into some vinegar and wiping the rims clean. Seal the jars with the lids.
Fill the water bath canner with as much (cold to lukewarm!) water as indicated in the instructions. Put the jars into the canner, ensuring enough space so they don’t touch. Heat the canner to 100 °C. Once it has reached that temperature, let it simmer for 40 minutes. When time’s up, remove the jars with a glass lifter from the water bath canner and put them onto a dishcloth on the counter. Let the glasses cool down slowly.
Stored in a cool, dry place, dry-canned apples have a shelf life of at least two years.
If you, like me, pickle a lot of vegetables, you need a good deal of apple vinegar. Instead of buying it, however, why not try your hand at making it by yourself – from scraps! It’s so easy, that you’ll wonder why you didn’t do it earlier and never will buy a drop of apple vinegar again. All you need is apple scraps that is peels and cores (for example from making apple sauce or dry-canning apples), water, sugar and a bit of raw apple vinegar to start. As containers you’ll need sufficiently large sterile bottles or jars as well as some cloths to cover the jars
But before we start, let’s take a quick look at how vinegar is made.
Step 1: Sugar becomes alcohol
The first step to making apple vinegar is the production of apple wine. Natural yeasts transform the sugar from the apples plus the sugar we add into alcohol. You can see that by the formation of white foam on the surface. It’s also possible that after a few days, a white layer forms on the surface. That’s kahm yeast and it’s harmless.
When, after some time, the acid content in the liquid rises, kahm (and other) yeast(s) disappear.
Step 2: Alcohol becomes vinegar
As soon as the first alcohol has formed, acetic acid bacteria also start to work. They are naturally in the air and on the fruits and need alcohol and oxygen to multiply. For this reason, it’s essential that you only cover the jars with a cloth because without oxygen the acetic acid bacteria cannot work.
The alcohol is now fermented to acetic acid. If you want to learn more about how fermentation works, this article is just the thing you need:
How to make apple vinegar from scraps
Prepare your jars by washing them and the lids in hot water or the dishwasher and then let them dry.
Before processing your apples, wash them thoroughly in the sink to remove any dirt. Now peel and quarter them (depending on what you want to do with those apples) and remove the core. Cut off any rotten parts. Only unspoiled and healthy peels and cores can be used for making vinegar.
When chopping apples, I usually have three bowls at hand: one for the apple quarters to be processed, one for the “good” apple peels and cores and one for the rotten parts to be thrown away.
Put the peels and cores into a one-litre glass bottle until it’s about ¾ full. Add half a cup of sugar, and half a cup of apple vinegar as a starter and fill the bottle up with water. Stir or shake the mixture until the sugar has dissolved.
Don’t close the bottle with a lid as we need oxygen to make vinegar. Instead, put a clean piece of cloth on the bottle opening and fix it with a rubber band. That way, the liquid is exposed to oxygen, but no fruit flies or dirt can get into it.
Put the bottle in a warm, dark place (no direct sunlight) and let it sit for about 10 – 14 days. After a few days, you’ll see tiny bubbles forming.
After a few days, bubbles start to form
Sometimes, the mixture builds foam and may even bubble over the rim. If a thin white spread forms on the surface that destroys when you stir it slightly, that’s no reason to worry. It’s kahm yeast and will neither affect the process nor the taste. Around day 6 it’ll start to smell of vinegar.
After about 10 – 14 days, strain the liquid through a colander into a clean glass bottle. Make sure to squeeze out any residual liquid from the peels. If you have, you can add a vinegar mother to your fresh vinegar. This will help it to mature.
Put a fresh clean cloth on the opening and fix it with a rubber band. Let the vinegar mature in a cool, dark place for about six months. During this time, a mother of vinegar might form which is a great sign that everything’s going well! Taste your vinegar after six months. If it’s to your liking and a vinegar mother has formed, decant it into a fresh bottle. Carefully put the vinegar mother into a separate jar and fill it up with enough vinegar to cover it completely. You may use it as a starter for the next vinegar.
Homegrown jellyfish, a.k.a. mother of vinegar
Other fruit vinegars
I’ve also tried making vinegar from pear and quince scraps and it worked out very well. The pear and quince vinegar took a bit longer to mature (about 8 – 12 months) but the wait was absolutely worth it! Both vinegars tasted deliciously fruity and relatively mild and they add an interesting flavour to fruit salads. Pear and quince vinegar are also marvellous in a vinaigrette for autumn salads like lamb’s ear and chicory with pears, grapes and walnuts.
Apples are available all year round, especially when you grow a variety of them that ensure a long harvesting and shelf life. If you don’t have an orchard, you still can buy apples at any time of year. Nevertheless, fresh apples, plucked right from a tree when they are ripe are the privilege of autumn. I’m lucky enough to have a wonderful brother with a vast orchard and enough love for his sister that he allows her (that is: me) to have her share of his fruit harvest. Where we had very few fruits last year, this year has presented us with an abundance of them! Apart from eating the apples right from the tree and baking apple cakes in all varietes, what better way to preserve them for the upcoming winter than by canning apple sauce?
Ingredients and equipment for canning apple sauce
You’ll need a water bath canner (no pressure canner necessary for this recipe), appropriately large jars with well-closing lids and apples – at least one kilogram, the more the better – and sugar if you like.
Preparations
Prepare your jars by washing them and the lids in hot water or the dishwasher. Put the jar lids and rings or the rubber bands in a pot and cover them with water. Bring the water to a boil and let it all cook for five minutes. Remove the lids, rings and/or rubber bands from the boiling water and put them onto a clean dish towel on the kitchen counter. Let them dry.
Instructions for canning apple sauce
Rinse the apples in your sink to wash off any dirt. Also, remove any leaves, grass or other residues. Once washed, peel the apples, quarter them and cut out the cores. Cut off all rotten parts. If you want to make apple vinegar from the scraps, make sure that you only use unspoiled peels and cores. I usually take three bowls when preparing apple sauce: one for the apple quarters to be cooked, one for rotten apple parts or wormy cores to discard and one for all the scraps I later use for making vinegar.
Cooking
Once you’ve peeled and cut all the apples, wash the quarters again and put them into a large pot (or several if you have too many apples to fit into one, though you can also cook them in succession). Fill up water to about a quarter of the pot and put the apples to a boil. When the water’s boiling, carefully stir the apples from the top under so that they cook as well. After some minutes – depending on the sort – the apples become soft. Now use a hand blender to mix them into a smooth, homogenous mass. If you want, you can now optionally add some sugar to the apple sauce, but it isn’t necessary for preserving. I don’t use sugar in my apple sauce but if you want to and like your sauce sweeter, go ahead and add sugar to your taste.
When the sauce is blended stir it well until it’s boiling. Be very careful at this stage as the thick mass will easily bubble over and explosively release splashes of hot apple sauce that usually shoot at an unsuspecting arm or hand. I’ve gotten burnt more than once and know what I’m talking about…
Remove the pot from the stove and with the help of a funnel, ladle the apple sauce into the jars. Leave about one inch of headspace. Before closing the lids, make sure that the rim of the jar is clean. That’s best ensured by dipping a clean cloth (for example a towel) into some vinegar and wiping the rims clean. Seal the jars with the lids.
Canning
To can the jars, fill as much water into your water-bath canner as indicated in the manual and heat it. The water in the pot must have approximately the same temperature as the apple sauce in the jars. If we put the hot jars into cold to medium-warm water, they would break due to the huge temperature difference between the outside (water) and the inside (apple sauce). When the water has reached about 70 °C (160 °F), you can put the jars into the water bath canner (the apple sauce in the jars will have cooled down to approximately the same temperature by now). Make sure there is enough space between the jars and they don’t touch. Close the pot lid and bring the water to a boil. Once it boils, set the timer to 35 minutes and let the canner do its wonders.
When time’s up, carefully open the canner lid. Beware of the hot steam! Remove the jars with a glass lifter out of the canner and put them onto a towel on the counter to cool down.
When they’ve cooled down completely, store the apple sauce in a cool and dark place. It’ll last up to two years.
Apple sauce is a wonderful addition to pancakes or waffles, you can stir it into your morning yoghurt, make an autumnal apple tiramisu with it or just scoop it right from the jar.
Apple Sauce
Apple sauce is a wonderful addition to pancakes or waffles, you can stir it into your morning yoghurt, make an autumnal apple tiramisu with it or just scoop it right from the jar.
apples, at least one kilogram, the more the better
sugar (optional),to taste
Method
Prepare your jars by washing them and the lids in hot water or the dishwasher. Put the jar lids and rings or the rubber bands in a pot and cover them with water. Bring the water to a boil and let it all cook for five minutes. Remove the lids, rings and/or rubber bands from the boiling water and put them onto a clean dish towel on the kitchen counter. Let them dry.
Rinse the apples in your sink to wash off any dirt. Also, remove any leaves, grass or other residues.
Once washed, peel the apples, quarter them and cut out the cores. Cut off all rotten parts. If you want to make apple vinegar from the scraps, make sure that you only use unspoiled peels and cores.
Once you've peeled and cut all the apples, wash the quarters again and put them into a large pot (or several if you have too many apples to fit into one, although you can also cook them in succession). Fill up water to about a quarter of the pot and put the apples to a boil.
When the water's boiling, carefully stir the apples from the top under so that they cook as well. After 5 - 20 minutes - depending on the variety – the apples become soft. Now use a hand blender to mix them into a smooth, homogenous mass. If you want, you can now optionally add some sugar to the apple sauce, but it isn't necessary for preserving.
When the sauce is blended stir it well until it’s boiling. Be very careful at this stage as the thick mass will easily bubble over and explosively release splashes of hot apple sauce that usually shoot at an unsuspecting arm or hand.
Remove the pot from the stove and with the help of a funnel, ladle the apple sauce into the jars. Leave about one inch of headspace. Before closing the lids, make sure that the rim of the jar is clean. That's best ensured by dipping a clean cloth (for example a towel) into some vinegar and wiping the rims clean. Seal the jars with the lids.
To can the jars, fill as much water into your water-bath canner as indicated in the manual and heat it. The water in the pot must have approximately the same temperature as the apple sauce in the jars. If we put the hot jars into cold to medium-warm water, they would break due to the huge temperature difference between the outside (water) and the inside (apple sauce). Make sure there is enough space between the jars and they don’t touch. Close the pot lid and bring the water to a boil. Once it boils, set the timer to 35 minutes and let the canner do its wonders.
When time's up, carefully open the canner lid. Beware of the hot steam! Remove the jars with a glass lifter out of the canner and put them onto a towel on the counter to cool down.
When they’ve cooled down completely, store the apple sauce in a cool and dark place. It’ll last up to two years.
