Peeling Garlic

[wdfifteen]

I've tried everything I've heard about. No method is perfect. The knife is slow and tedious. The cocktail shaker needs older, drier garlic to work. The little black rollie thing works pretty well on individual cloves, but if you're doing a lot it takes forever it (my salsa recipe takes two cups of garlic). When doing a whole head of garlic I roll it around in a silicone pastry sheet. That works, but the sheet slips and slides and it's too much for Mrs WD to handle.
Does anyone have a really GREAT way to peel garlic?

[vash]

roast the entire head and squeeze it into your salsa?

i cut that tiny end off the cloves and give it a big slap with the side of a knife.

i have done it inside to mixing bowls (i'm assuming just like your mixer method) and just shake it up..works pretty awesome, but i hate wading thru the paper to find the cloves..

grippier mixing bowls work better.

We use a LOT of garlic at Nature's Plate. When I was doing prep, I used 2 metal bowls - same as your cocktail shaker. Makes a hellofa lot of noise and got about 70% of it. Nothing else works as well or as fast. We finally stated bying it peeled. So much more pleasant

[Shaun @ Tru6]

cut the ends off of each clove, put them in two stainless mixing bowls and shake. Works perfectly.

[Tobra]

I use a lot of roasted garlic, like delicious paste. If not roasted, mash the clove a bit with the flat of a chef's knife and remove the husk.

[MRM]

Yes, it's incredibly easy once you know the trick. Take the flat side of a wide kitchen knife and press down on the clove or bulb to squeeze it until it's almost flat. The skin pops right off as the garlic is squeezed. You peel any remaining skin off with your fingers.

I think this is the technique Tobra is describing above.

[Deschodt]

nuke the whole garlic for a 15-20 seconds and the cloves will pop out easy peasy..

[Evans, Marv]

I buy the jars of diced up garlic and keep it in the fridge. Always ready to go and lasts a long time. If I'm doing something like roasting garlic, it's the only time I buy raw heads.

[Tobra]

Wear gloves or you can rub your hands on stainless steel under running water to get the smell off.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by peteremsley

Somewhat related - We planted garlic in earlier in the year. How do you know when its ready to be pulled? I assume pulling it, saying nah, and putting it back is not a great idea.

I don't know if this is the best advice or not, but it's what my google search says. I learned something.

Most experts say to harvest when several of the lower leaves go brown, but five or six up top are still green—and depending on the weather, this typically happens here in my Northeast garden in late July. Above, those are a few plants just as they came from the ground one year. Early bouts of sustained spring heat can push the garlic a little ahead of schedule (as with so many other plants), and have my harvest curing extra-early, a process that takes three to eight weeks, before the tops will be cut off, the roots trimmed, and the cured bulbs stored.

In the curing there’s another difference between the most popular Allium cousins, garlic and onion: Assuming it’s a dry day when harvest comes, onions can be left out to dry right beside the rows you dug them from. Not so with garlic, which should be moved out of direct sunlight immediately once unearthed. Move it to a garage or porch or shed where the air circulation is good.

Harvesting garlic couldn’t be easier, as long as you remember one thing: Though tempting, do not try pulling the bulbs out by the above-ground stems, or at least without first loosening the soil alongside each row with a spading fork (not too close to the heads!). Garlic stores best when cured with its leaves on.

Other factors that affect the timing of garlic harvest besides the weather, is what kind of garlic you planted.

Softneck garlic (Allium sativum), the most common type of supermarket familiarity, has a row of largish outer cloves and a row or two of inner small ones. It would keep better than what I grow, but I like the bigger (though fewer-per-head) cloves of the hardneck kind…

…because hardneck garlic (Allium sativum var. ophioscorodon) is better-adapted to Northern winters (its long roots hold it in the heave-and-thaw ground especially well), and frankly I just hate all those tiny inner cloves of softneck at peeling time. Nor does comparatively puny softneck make as nice a roasted head of garlic as the bigger-cloved kind.

Hardneck kinds also send up a scape—really a woody flower-stalk-to-be—around June, signaling a month or so remaining before bulb maturity. I cut the scapes off when they start to develop (above), and use them in stir-fries, oiled and grilled, or pureed with cheese as a pesto on pasta. I’m not being selfish by harvesting them then (though they are delicious); rather I’m telling the plants to put their energy into bulb production, not sexual reproduction.

Most experts agree that is the benefit of removal, though some say leaving it on produces better cloves for replanting as your “seed” stock. I frankly have no idea what’s true (as with so much of gardening, you go on gut); I cut them off.

I make it all sound like a lot to ponder, but garlic is easy to grow. It took me a mere 15 minutes to harvest my crop of about 75 heads today, and not much work before that, frankly, either.

Once cured, I’ll stash most in a cold, dark spot–and freeze a portion of my harvest, so I have my own garlic all year round. More on storing (and freezing) for the long haul.

[wdfifteen]

Originally Posted by peteremsley

Somewhat related - We planted garlic in earlier in the year. How do you know when its ready to be pulled? I assume pulling it, saying nah, and putting it back is not a great idea.

I'm not sure about where you are, but in general you plant it before the first hard freeze and harvest it the next summer.
Here in Ohio we plant in November and harvest in July. This year I ordered our "seed" garlic not based on flavor but in the size of the clove. It's just too much of a pain to try to peel 15 cloves out of each head when you've got 20 heads to harvest.
As I said, smacking with a knife is OK if you're only doing a small amount, but it is incredibly tedious if you have 10 or 20 heads of garlic to peel.

[wdfifteen]

Steve - an annual event for us is to pack the cavity of a fat hen with the scapes that we cut from the developing garlic plants and roast it. It's a great way to use an otherwise waste product, and the chicken tastes wonderful.

[masraum]

I spent 2 summers in Spain when I was in college (my parents were there). I was shocked when I was in a grocery store and saw the garlic. I didn't see anywhere that you could buy 1 head of garlic like pretty much every American grocery store sells. Their small bunches are probably 8-10 heads, but you can buy them in huge braids that are probably 25-40 heads.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by wdfifteen

Steve - an annual event for us is to pack the cavity of a fat hen with the scapes that we cut from the developing garlic plants and roast it. It's a great way to use an otherwise waste product, and the chicken tastes wonderful.

That sounds tasty!

[wdfifteen]

Originally Posted by peteremsley

but that's not the same as nurturing it in your organic beds and spending $2 per clove at harvest time

It's not the same, but spending $2 a head only happens in the supermarket.

I don't know what our 2017 crop yielded, but it was 8-10 lbs. Including shipping the cost of the seed garlic for that crop was $0. You find a variety you like and save some cloves and plant them the following year. It is a genetic clone. I do spend about $15 a year experimenting with new varieties.

[masraum]

Can you use the stalks as a garnish like you might with a green onion or scallion? They look nearly identical, and I know they have the aroma of garlic. I'm just picturing them in fried rice or sprinkled over mashed potatoes or ....

[VincentVega]

When I worked in a kitchen I just smashed it with the side of my knife. Doesnt take that long, unless you need to process pounds at a time.

$40/mo for water? yikes. I setup a rain barrel and only have to pull out the garden hose if it doesnt rain for a few weeks.

[wdfifteen]

Originally Posted by masraum

Can you use the stalks as a garnish like you might with a green onion or scallion?

I never have. They are very woody and not appealing, sort of like a chopstick. Maybe someone has used them.

[john70t]

peter, there may be an underground leak in a sprinkler system?
Even in the desert plants shouldn't be needing that much with drip irrigation etc.
Should be able to hand water every couple days.

Cover the beds with straw to protect from a hot sun and work in some perilite/vermiculite/peat to hold moisture.