Garlic Galore!

We have had a little garlic and shallots harvest this week.
The shallots, which can be seen in the first image above, are french grey shallots. We got our first bulbs from Gordon and Amy 4 years ago and save some of the harvest each year to replant in the fall.
The garlic are both hardneck varieties, Music and German Brown. Also planted in the fall, the garlic overwinter and then are ready for harvesting when there are only one or two green leaves left. They cure in a dry place for a day or so before Matt cleans them all up and makes them purty for the kitchen.
Garlic ( Allium sativum ) has two subspecies, softneck( sativum ) and hardneck( ophioscorodon ). The softneck has two main varieties, Silverskin and Artichoke. Supermarket garlic is almost all Silverskin garlic from China or California. Silverskins can be planted mechanically and are good keepers. The soft neck allows easy braiding. Under some conditions a softneck type of garlic will produce a scape.

The hardneck varieties do well in the cooler climates. The hard neck refers to the scape, or flower stalk, with its topset of bulbils. Hardnecks take a little more care to grow because they need to be hand planted right side up, and to have their scapes snipped off.

Fresh garlic is often kind of sticky and hard to peel.
To peel garlic, place your knife flat on the garlic clove and whack with your other hand. The covering will burst open and the clove can be easily removed.
Also, if you have a good quality garlic press, such as a Zyliss, you don't need to peel the clove before pressing. Just push it thru and the skins remains in the press.
Those rubber tubes work great, too!