Garlic Harvest

The garlic was ready to harvest today.  We only planted 36 heads of Purple Italian this year.  We will use about 10 heads to make spaghetti sauce and use for cooking, then I will plant the rest for next year.  That should give me around 250 heads next year.

Garlic harvest and ready to be cured

 I tied them into 6 bundles of 6 heads with a long piece of binders twine.  I put a loop at the end of the twine and hang them from nails in the barn.  They will hang there for 3-4 weeks before they are ready.  To tell if they are ready, you cut the stem off of one and squeeze it to see if there is any liquid in it.  If there is, then they aren't ready yet.

The onions are also getting ready to harvest.  There were 12-18 that were ready today, so I pulled them and set them out to start curing.  Tomorrow I will put them on wire racks and hang them in the barn for about 30 days to cure for storage.  With how fast they grew this year, I'm tempted to plant again since we have 3-4 months of growing season left.

And one final surprise, our first mature pepper is ready.  That was kind of surprising considering that the plants aren't that big yet and they've only been in the ground for a month.  Being on so early, I'll wait until they turn yellow, orange, or red before harvesting.  They are a lot sweeter when they aren't green.

First mature pepper