On Thursday June 11th, I harvested 6.8 lbs of Siskiyou Purple softneck garlic. It was one hell of a lot of garlic for 2 people and I still have the hardneck Chesnok Red to harvest and have so far only harvested the “scrapes” from the hardneck garlic.
The scrapes can be used for a variety of recipes (a couple are listed at Hood River Organic Garlic Farm) so I harvested them and saved them, which is a good idea because if you go to Berkeley Bowl these things cost $4.59 / lb.
Below are a few pictures of the harvested softneck Siskiyou Purple garlic, and some shots of the Chesnok Red garlic that I have yet to harvest, but I did harvest the scrapes.
Siskiyou Purple softneck garlic immediately after the harvest
Siskiyou Purple softneck garlic after drying for a day
Chesnok Red hardneck garlic scrapes. The scrapes are the curled stalks. You cut them off so the garlic uses its energy growing the bulb rather than seeds
Chesnok Red hardneck garlic scrapes. The scrapes are the curled stalks. You cut them off so the garlic uses its energy growing the bulb rather than seeds
Chesnok Red hardneck garlic scrapes. The scrapes can be used for a variety of recipes including garlic scrape pesto
While writing this, I came across another blog called IPB Living where they did a taste test for 3 types of garlic in 2008 and Chesnok Red was one of them. It looks like it fared well in the taste test. I can hardly wait to harvest mine.
June 14, 2009 at 4:46 pm
Your garlic harvest looks awesome! We haven’t tried softneck garlic yet, so I’m looking forward to your review. I hope you like the Chesnok Red; it seems to be everyone’s favorite around the interwebs!
Also, what’s better this time of year than a bumper crop of scapes?
June 14, 2009 at 7:51 pm
When I used to live in Silicon Valley, on a some days you could smell the garlic coming up from Gilroy first thing in the morning. Gilroy is 30 miles to the south of San Jose, so you can imagine what it must have smelled like in Gilroy. The smell even first thing in the morning was divine & made me want to grow my own garlic for a long time now. This is my first year and it’s apparently been a success.
As soon as the garlic has cured we’ll do a review. I particularly liked what the two of you did last year with 3 types of garlic. The ones that I chose this year were based on reviews that I read in the Seeds of Change catalog, so I’m hoping the Siskiyou Purple will be as fantastic as they claim.
– Jarad