Growing Garlic, Making Pesto

This year I grew garlic in the back yard.

It started with just three heads of an heirloom hardneck garlic variety ‘Music’ grown and seed-saved year after year by my parents.

I stored the cloves in the fridge for a week before planting (in case that helps with vernalization in our mild winter climate– unclear), then planted them in a raised bed in January (about an inch down, 4″ apart):

Three weeks later, they’d sprouted:

By mid-spring every clove had grown into a healthy-looking plant:

In May the garlic started putting out scapes, these smooth, curving shoots with the beginnings of bulbs at the end. These could become the garlic flower…

But instead we harvested them, to leave the garlic growing underground and also to cook with:

They make a delicious, spicy pesto (with some parsley, olive oil, pepitas, parmesan, and salt) that we ate that night and froze (in an ice cube tray) for future meals:

By early July, the garlic was showing signs of being ready to harvest– the tops were about half brown and dead:

I picked a test bulb (each of the 12 cloves planted grows into a whole new bulb) and checked it out. Good external paper beginning to peel off:

Pretty good internal form: individual cloves, each in a papery skin. Perhaps still a bit thin/moist? I decided to leave it another week or two.

In mid July, I picked the rest:

H braided them and we hung them up outdoors to dry for a few weeks before moving them to the kitchen:

And at last, our first batch of basil pesto that used both basil and garlic from the garden:

Tags: gardening, garlic, garlic scapes, Pesto