Garlic harvest!!!

A few days ago I said the garlic wasn't ready for harvest yet, but I must have been thinking about harvest dates in cool Oregon, not warm Georgia.  I checked on the Dirt Doctor site and found that the big purple one, Duganski, was past ready.  This is the same one that I taste-tasted a couple of days ago.  So -- out I went to pull them up.  Instructions were to not wash off the dirt, not cut off the tops or roots, cure slowly indoors in a cool, dry place.

Well!  There is no cool, dry place right now and I have no clue how long it takes to cure.  But, with thunderstorms looming I brought them inside and made do, for now.

A grand total of 54, including the one I picked earlier in the week.

Beautiful stuff, if you like garlic.  Note the bits of purple -- most of which has peeled away.  That's a bad sign, because it now has fewer outer dry leaves to protect it in storage.  It's because I harvested too late.  But, I'll eat lots of it.

The Duganski is still out there and not as ready to harvest as the Susanville was.  It should still be fine, although I'll probably harvest it this weekend.

This is the closest I could come to a 'cool, dry, place'.  In my pantry, layered on the wire storage shelving.  It smells strong -- like garlic (duh!) and the rotted manure in which it grew.  

I've emailed the garlic expert at Dirt Doctor.com and hope he'll help me figure out how to best cure and store this and the Duganski. I should have about 100 bulbs, which is far more than I will use in the coming year.  I may have to share.  The main thing is to save a few bulbs of the Duganski to re-sow this fall.  I love the big, fat cloves, as compared to the smaller cloves of the Susanville.  I use a lot of garlic, so it's easier to peel fewer bigger cloves than lots of small cloves.  I think it's called lazy.