Tag Archives: onions

Cured garlic

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Cured garlic

Cured garlic, Purple Glazer and Music varieties

My garlic harvest is now cured and stored away safely hanging in my basement. I had it on a drying rack in the garage with a fan on it for about 2 weeks or so, and then I trimmed off the dead leaves and the roots, and then brought them inside.

I tried my hand at braiding the smaller variety, the Purple Glazer, but I think this technique must be better suited for soft neck varieties, as it was very hard to manipulate the stalks into the braid. There are numerous videos on how to do this online (I referenced this one).

Cured Purple Glazer garlic

Cured Purple Glazer garlic

Music, the larger variety pictured above, has stalks as much as a half inch thick, and some of them are still quite green, so I’ve just wrapped the whole bundle with some twine and hung it up. The green in the stalks suggests its not quite finished curing but given its most of the way there it should be fine hung up in a dry spot. My basement isn’t exactly humidity free but its dry enough, and last year’s garlic did just fine.

Cured Music garlic

Cured Music garlic

The stalks of my Spanish onions were starting to fall over in the garden so I decided it would be a good idea to pull them and set them to cure while we’re on holiday, rather than leave them in the garden. My shallots are still curing, along with the last of the multiplier spring onions I had allowed to get too overgrown. My hope is I can save those bulbs and try them out in either the early winter or next spring. I’ve never saved bulbs from onions but it should be easy enough.

 

Finally, some rain

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While it’s so early in the growing season that I really don’t have much planted outdoors yet, just some onions, potatoes and garlic that was planted last year, we’ve had virtually drought conditions all winter and early spring. But finally, yesterday, the heavens opened and it’s been pouring ever since. We need at least a good week of this weather to put things back in proper spring balance, I think.

Early April garden - Spurge

Spurge after the rain

I’ve drafted my planting map for my two raised beds. I’ve had to pretty much write off my regular beds along the house this year because of some serious waterproofing work we need to do. They’ll never be quite the same beds again afterward, because they need to be set up with proper gravel drainage at the sections closest to the house, but I’ll make do. I’m welcoming the opportunity to replant them again with some kind of “master plan” as the perennial section has become a bit of a hodgepodge, due to my lack of experience.

Early April garden - Daffodils

Daffodils

What will really be a bummer is that most of the bulbs, unless I can salvage them, will take a serious hit. The front beds were planted years and years ago with gazillions of bulbs, by Chris’s aunt, and as a result they are always a welcome cacophony of colour every spring. Hopefully I can get in there during the digging and retrieve them.

Early April garden - Garlic

Garlic sprouts taking off

I’ve stuck a few potatoes in the raised beds, along with some red onions and shallots. I managed to get them in last night in a break in the rain. I also want to plant a second crop of garlic but I’m not sure where to put it. They might have to go into pots in the backyard this year.

Early April garden - Sorrel

Sorrel, already could be harvested

My seedlings in the house are doing well. Many of my “mystery chili” have come up, thank goodness, because I only harvested two last year due to the horrible weather conditions. Here’s hoping for a great summer for growing chilies!

Last of the summer veggies

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Well I think fall has officially arrived, with all this cool, windy, wet weather. I’m not really complaining — we actually did need a good rain. But I had hoped we’d get a little more warm weather and sun to help me ripen off the last of the tomatoes. I’m leaving them out there for a little longer and crossing my fingers that the squirrels will leave them alone. I’ve lost a few fruits to them so far but I’ve also harvested a lot so I can’t really complain.

Canning tomatoes

Half bushel of roma tomatoes

A couple weeks ago I was at the farm for the weekend to visit, and my mom and I hit up the Stratford Farmers’ Market. I’d been there in the spring and it was pretty quiet, but this time of year it was full of people selling everything. I bought this half bushel of roma tomatoes from a really nice Jamaican guy, and turned them into tomato sauce as soon as I got back to the city. It was the perfect opportunity to try out my new tomato processor.

Canning tomatoes

Tomato mill

Canning tomatoes

Canned tomato sauces

It was a good experiment because I wasn’t really sure what a half bushel would turn into. Turns out it makes nearly 12 500 ml jars of sauce. I kept the sauces pretty simple; one is tomato, garlic and basil, the other was the same with some added chili flakes, pepper and oregano. I think the sauce is a bit runnier than I’d like but that can be adjusted in cooking with it.

Last of the beets and some carrots

Last of the beets and a couple carrots

In addition to the tomatoes, I’ve been using up the ones in the garden making batches of salsa. I turned the Yellow Pear and Goldie tomatoes into a golden salsa, and the latest batch used up a bagful of chilis I bought at the Stratford market, which I roasted on the grill first.

Next was to use up the beets. I only had Chioggia beets, which are not deep purple pink like the regular ones. I wanted to pickle some regular ones in addition to these so I bought some at the market in Nathan Philips Square. So now I have a good stock of pickled beets.

Last of the carrots

Last of the carrots

I had left a large number of carrots still in the garden but the squirrels were starting to find those attractive, so I pulled them this weekend, scrubbed them all and put them in the fridge. I turned a few into Vietnamese Pickled Carrots and Radish (not canned), which we’ve been munching on all week.

Onions and shallots

Onions and shallots

Finally, a few weeks ago I pulled the onions and have been letting them dry for the last little while. I’m hoping they’ll store well. I don’t have a great deal of luck storing garlic or onions for long. Our basement is cool but damp, and well, fridges are not good places to store these either. I’m pretty happy with how the shallots grew, but the onions are quite small. I don’t know why I can’t seem to get full sized onions. Maybe I’m not getting them in the ground early enough? Maybe it wasn’t a great onion year? I don’t know.

A couple weeks ago I planted some spinach, kale, chard and some lettuce. Unfortunately I think the lettuce isn’t going to make it, but the other stuff is doing well, not minding the cold at all. I may have got it in the ground too late (I meant to plant these before I went on vacation) but we’ll see what happens. There are also still parsnips in the ground which will do just fine until we get some good frosts. There is also still some celery that I need to harvest. Soon I’ll have to pull up the tomatoes and prepare for winter!