Garlic

Last year, my younger sister came and stayed with us to help watch our toddler while daycare was closed. She also gardened a lot. At one point while she was here she planted garlic, just the regular kind from the store. It came up quickly and grew all winter long until I pulled it out looking like this:

After harvesting it, I dried it in the basement over the summer. I am not sure this is the right way to do it, but I finally brought it up today to take a look.

I’m pleased to say it all looks and smells like garlic! I appreciate how magical growing food still feels.

I’ll probably plant half of this in the next few days, roast the garlic scapes in spring, hopefully harvest the rest when it’s ready, then do it all over again. It makes me think about whenever it was that garlic was first spreading as a food. One person harvesting a head of garlic and planting it all that fall. Then, with several heads of garlic the next year, sharing a clove with close friends and family so they could start a crop of their own.