Home grown garlic and how to use it like a boss - And additional advice for making homemade spices.

[Burd Turglar]

I've been spending the last couple years experimenting with making my own spices from scratch. Some have gone extremely well and some have turned out like incest babies. This is because I like to experiment on my own without niggers telling me what to do. Allow me to share some fun tips and tricks I've learned along the way and begin a fun little discussion.

First and foremost, garlic! How do?
Garlic is the best God damned flavor on the planet and is good as fuck for you. Most people don't know, however, that there's dozens of varieties of garlic. All of these varieties have their own intrinsic attributes. Some are spicy raw and some are mellow raw. Some are big, some are small. Some store for a 6+ months and some are like 3 tops. One thing is for sure, don't plant that Chinese bullshit that comes from "Christian farms".

Planting garlic; how do?
I cannot speak for subtropical, equater faggots and shit but so long as you have a cold season, always plant your garlic in the fall, cover it, and winter it over. Once you're passed the spring frosts, if you have them, uncover and let it grow. When you notice "buds", trim them. It helps direct the nutrients to the growth of the bulb AND you can use the scapes for all sorts of shit. I like to dice them up and use them in sourdough or over some eggs. Use your imagination!

Harvesting your garlic?! I find the best harvest is when the first 2-4 outer leaves go brown like my starfish. Depending on how moist your soil is, might want to dig but I usually wet that shit and just gently pull them up. Once you've pulled all your garlic, hang that shit to dry. I use my workshop usually because it smells wonderful and won't get dew and shit on it. Pulling in the north of the US is usually around July or August but more near the south you can pull as early as March sometimes. Drying will typically take 3 weeks plus depending on your environment and how big your bulbs are.

Once you have dried your bulbs, fucking enjoy that shit dude!

Wait, what's that? You have too much garlic? Here's some ideas!

1) Peel a bunch of that garlic, throw it in a Mason jar and fill that bitch with raw honey. Let sit for a month in a dark, cool place but flip it every 2 days with the jar slightly vented. You will have a delicious fermented garlic honey that is a cure all for what ails you unless you have AIDS.

B) I mentioned using the scapes earlier for making fun sourdough. Right? Well if you really want to make good sourdough. Chop that garlic the fuck up and use it too! Chives go good in it too.

3) Garlic powder you say? It's EZ-PZ and you'll never buy that trash from the store again! If you have a dehydrator, which you should, just peel and smash all the cloves you want to dehydrate and set them at about 125-145 and let that bitch run till they're dry. Times will very depending on the size of cloves. I grow honkers so it usually takes me 2 days. Then slap em in a spice grinder or coffee grinder and grind till you reach your desired consistency. If you don't have a dehydrater, you can use an oven but I don't do that so feel free to experiment. Your house will smell incredible and you'll never buy that store bought shit again. I also mix it with various other dried herbs and produce to make fun spice blends.

4) A small tip! And I'm not talking about mine. When you experiment with a lot of spice blends, you'll want an agent to prevent clumping. There's a few chemicals you can use but I like to go au natural. My advice, use rice hulls. All organic and insert hippie shit here. Your ratio will be a personal experiment though as the taste can come through but this shit works great. I use it in all my dehydrated spices except for leaf herbs like basil, thyme or oregano.

This is all I have to say for now. I will reserve the first comment for following tips about various herbs and some fun things to also turn into homemade spices. I hope you all enjoy and we can have a fun dialauge. Ask me questions if you have any and happy growing ya fuckers!

 

[Burd Turglar]

OK so another fun thing to do is dehydrate jalapeños for a fun, sassy spice. I make a garlic jalapeño blend that is a fucking mazing on popcorn for movie night. The key is to slice them in half lengthwise prior to dehydrating to ensure they don't take a week to dry.

I'll add more.

 

[Kiwi Andy]

thanks for sharing

 

[OrionBalls]

Only thing I have to add is that garlic is always ready to harvest on the 4th of July, here. It is the most patriotic crop.

 

[Dr. Ricearoni]

I have a few questions, because I love garlic and would like to start a garden in my backyard, and given the time of year now seems appropriate to get started.

Do I need to prepare the soil in any particular way? I've never gardened before so I'm not really sure what to do with the soil. Should I just use a raised bed or is the soil around my house fine? (I live out in the country among a lot of farmland, so the soil clearly is good for something)

Are there any varieties in particular you would recommend? I wouldn't mind trying some of those spicier variants you mentioned, I tend to make pizza sauce from scratch and a bit of that sounds like just what my sauce needs.

How should I go about planting it? Does it need to be planted deep or can I just plop that shit in a shallow layer of soil?

And finally, when you say cover it, do you mean like with a tarp? I've seen some sources say you should cover it with mulch of some kind.

Thanks in advance

 

[Burd Turglar]

I have a few questions, because I love garlic and would like to start a garden in my backyard, and given the time of year now seems appropriate to get started.

Do I need to prepare the soil in any particular way? I've never gardened before so I'm not really sure what to do with the soil. Should I just use a raised bed or is the soil around my house fine? (I live out in the country among a lot of farmland, so the soil clearly is good for something)

Are there any varieties in particular you would recommend? I wouldn't mind trying some of those spicier variants you mentioned, I tend to make pizza sauce from scratch and a bit of that sounds like just what my sauce needs.

How should I go about planting it? Does it need to be planted deep or can I just plop that shit in a shallow layer of soil?

And finally, when you say cover it, do you mean like with a tarp? I've seen some sources say you should cover it with mulch of some kind.

Thanks in advance

No problemo fren, always glad to help! (Especially when it comes to garlic).

A raised garden is fine and so is just normal tilled garden soil. Obviously don't just plant it in the grass. You can get super autistic about soul quality and blah blah blah but if you're just starting out, so long as it's not a nuclear silo dump, you're probably good to plant. Well, hopefully it's not high clay content, that will fuck your ass.

There are so many varieties but I would suggest finding local vendors or garlic festivals, they're pretty common around the US, to find some starters. The shit from the store is typically from China and no Bueno. For your first year, I would just suggest throwing as much shit at the wall as possible variety wise and see what works as idk where you're at or what you have access to.

Garlic doesn't need to be planted deep but spacing is important otherwise your bulbs will get all wonky. I have had almost zero bulbs NOT grow so don't worry about dead space or pulling shit (depending on environmental conditions that I don't know). As for covering, i started growing them where it would hit well into the-20 to -50s and all I ever used was piles of leaves.

I wish I could be more precise but I don't know your climate so if you want to DM me I can give you a little more tailored info. Happy growing either way!

 

[Aubergine Stupendous]

I have a few questions, because I love garlic and would like to start a garden in my backyard, and given the time of year now seems appropriate to get started.

Do I need to prepare the soil in any particular way? I've never gardened before so I'm not really sure what to do with the soil. Should I just use a raised bed or is the soil around my house fine? (I live out in the country among a lot of farmland, so the soil clearly is good for something)

Are there any varieties in particular you would recommend? I wouldn't mind trying some of those spicier variants you mentioned, I tend to make pizza sauce from scratch and a bit of that sounds like just what my sauce needs.

How should I go about planting it? Does it need to be planted deep or can I just plop that shit in a shallow layer of soil?

And finally, when you say cover it, do you mean like with a tarp? I've seen some sources say you should cover it with mulch of some kind.

Thanks in advance

If you felt inclined to get a little soil spergy, sprinkle maybe a teaspoon of bonemeal in the holes you plant your garlic in. In the spring, you can side dress your garlic with blood meal too, by just pressing it an inch or two into the soil alongside the garlic. Both of those are pretty cheap and will feed your bulbs to help them grow larger and more flavorful. But also as has been mentioned, garlic will grow without any of that shit as well.

You should save your biggest cloves to plant next year too.

 

[Burd Turglar]

If you felt inclined to get a little soil spergy, sprinkle maybe a teaspoon of bonemeal in the holes you plant your garlic in. In the spring, you can side dress your garlic with blood meal too, by just pressing it an inch or two into the soil alongside the garlic. Both of those are pretty cheap and will feed your bulbs to help them grow larger and more flavorful. But also as has been mentioned, garlic will grow without any of that shit as well.

You should save your biggest cloves to plant next year too.

A fellow conosiuer! I use fresh compost and a smidgen of chicken shit in all my gardens. I will make sure to try bloodmeal next time I plant though, in an in-between home right now.

 

[Honored guest]

I have a few questions, because I love garlic and would like to start a garden in my backyard, and given the time of year now seems appropriate to get started.

Do I need to prepare the soil in any particular way? I've never gardened before so I'm not really sure what to do with the soil. Should I just use a raised bed or is the soil around my house fine? (I live out in the country among a lot of farmland, so the soil clearly is good for something)

Are there any varieties in particular you would recommend? I wouldn't mind trying some of those spicier variants you mentioned, I tend to make pizza sauce from scratch and a bit of that sounds like just what my sauce needs.

How should I go about planting it? Does it need to be planted deep or can I just plop that shit in a shallow layer of soil?

And finally, when you say cover it, do you mean like with a tarp? I've seen some sources say you should cover it with mulch of some kind.

Thanks in advance

If your still interested I suggest you watch some of these videos

This guy provides alot of good info for gardeners both new and old, He even set up a seed shop that sells garlic seed over at https://migardener.com/

You'll want soil with good drainage and alot of organic matter. Space and depth is covered in the basic garlic growing videos posted above, and as for covering the garlic I would use a mulch like woodchips or straw just dont go to heavy.
As for different varieties I would suggest (if you have the space) to grow several different varieties both to see which ones you prefer flavor wise and which do better in your region, A fun thing about garlic is that if you grow the same variety over and over saving the best bulbs you'll get progressively bigger harvests.

OK so another fun thing to do is dehydrate jalapeños for a fun, sassy spice. I make a garlic jalapeño blend that is a fucking mazing on popcorn for movie night. The key is to slice them in half lengthwise prior to dehydrating to ensure they don't take a week to dry.

I'll add more.

Something I discovered last year was that if you make fermented hot sauce you can take the pepper mash thats leftover, dry it out(oven or dedydrator), and powder it. It makes an awesome almost chili/cayenne powder like spice(depending on what peppers you use). Made some great bbq rub with it.

 

[Prokhor Zakharov]

1) Peel a bunch of that garlic, throw it in a Mason jar and fill that bitch with raw honey. Let sit for a month in a dark, cool place but flip it every 2 days with the jar slightly vented. You will have a delicious fermented garlic honey that is a cure all for what ails you unless you have AIDS.

I would absolutely believe this. Combining the antimicrobial properties of both would likely be quite a powerful combo for a number of injuries. However, I would caution anyone who is really old, or has a compromised immune system (from any reason, including medication). You could actually give yourself a rather unusual infection if your immune system isn't geared-up to work with this combo.

 

[Burd Turglar]

I would absolutely believe this. Combining the antimicrobial properties of both would likely be quite a powerful combo for a number of injuries. However, I would caution anyone who is really old, or has a compromised immune system (from any reason, including medication). You could actually give yourself a rather unusual infection if your immune system isn't geared-up to work with this combo.

I mean I would imagine that's a no brainer for the same reason babies can't have raw honey. I come from thick Italian stock though and garlic is life for us roaches.

@Honored guest Once I'm settled in this new state, I will be doing a lot of experimenting with home made hot sauce as a lot of even the small batch shit can be so hit or miss. It's good to know that you can turn the leftover mash into spice blends! IDK if I posted earlier but two of my favorite peppers to experiment with are lemon drops and Aji Amarillo's. The later, when dried, has an oddly nacho cheese taste and smell and the former is pretty straight forward. Both aren't crazy spicy so they make for fun stuff that adventurous normies can usually handle.

 

[Dr. Ricearoni]

My garlic I ordered online finally came in today. I got myself two hardneck bulb varieties, a commie garlic called chesnok red and a German variety called Northern white. I'll plant them this week and keep you posted.

 

[Burd Turglar]

My garlic I ordered online finally came in today. I got myself two hardneck bulb varieties, a commie garlic called chesnok red and a German variety called Northern white. I'll plant them this week and keep you posted.

Korean red is one of my favorites, it's a smaller variety but has a really nice spicy finish when raw and cooks to a nutty mellow.

 

[Iron Jaguar]

The Chinese garlic sold in Australia is vile. It has a harsh, raw taste to it. There are a few Lebanese places that import their own garlic from Lebanon and it is much nicer, very smooth and mellow, but still with a strong taste.

Anyway, @Burd Turglar , do you plait your garlic to hang it? My dad once wove what I can only describe as a mat or a net of garlic bulbs, about a metre square. That lasted us for ages.

 

[Burd Turglar]

The Chinese garlic sold in Australia is vile. It has a harsh, raw taste to it. There are a few Lebanese places that import their own garlic from Lebanon and it is much nicer, very smooth and mellow, but still with a strong taste.

Anyway, @Burd Turglar , do you plait your garlic to hang it? My dad once wove what I can only describe as a mat or a net of garlic bulbs, about a metre square. That lasted us for ages.

Never get garlic from China. It's awful and they dye it. Pretty much anything from the grocery stores here in America are all from one company that sources from China.

I have not personally woven it, I have a giant iron grate that I dry my stuff on and then I have some nice containers that keep it cool and dark but with air flow to keep it good.

 

[Dr. Ricearoni]

Planted and covered. It was very nice being outside digging around for a bit. I dug a decently sized bed out, filled it with compost from a rotting pile of hay I had out back and some potting soil I had (the soil out here is really dry and clumpy with all the grass so I couldn't replace it) then cracked and planted the large bulbs before covering in the leftover rotten hay and grass clippings. How often should I water this? Should I wait until spring to start watering?

 

[Burd Turglar]

View attachment 6571051
Planted and covered. It was very nice being outside digging around for a bit. I dug a decently sized bed out, filled it with compost from a rotting pile of hay I had out back and some potting soil I had (the soil out here is really dry and clumpy with all the grass so I couldn't replace it) then cracked and planted the large bulbs before covering in the leftover rotten hay and grass clippings. How often should I water this? Should I wait until spring to start watering?

I can't accurately tell you what to do as I don't know what zone you are in. I've never watered my garlic until the late spring/summer and then it only got watered because it was in the same bed as some other plants and I had a soaker hose hooked up.

You always want to be careful with underground stuff because it's easy to over water it and that can lead to rot. Keep it covered though and it will retain moisture. I always used straw or leaves but let me know how the sod method works out for you.

Good luck and God speed fren! Make sure to let us know how it turns out! I'm still living off my harvest from July and will be well into the spring. I don't know if I'm going to plant yet this year because I'm in Flux between renting and buying. Here's what I still have though

 

[Erikkk]

I feel that in the spirit of this thread, I should provide some info for any other denizens of the UK/Ireland as no doubt there's one or two that will read this just as I have and not have a clue where to start.

Being much further north than most of the US & Canada, what grows here and when to plant it can sometimes be a bit confusing (at least it was to my idiotic past self) as most online sources will cater to our North American cousins.

For a good resource on growing pretty much anything, the Royal Horticultural Society is actually a pretty solid go-to source even if they are more well-known for flower shows. They even have an entire section on their site about "Growing your own" which you can peruse at your leisure where they give very simple to follow step-by-step instructions.


As it pertains to garlic:

Planting season in Britain & Ireland is generally from October through to Feb, with harvest being June through August. So get planting now if you want to harvest next year.

Now due to our generally cooler climate through the year, most types of garlic you can buy from the supermarket are useless to us. This is because most are varieties imported from overseas, such as China or Mediterranean countries, and as a result the plants need a warmer climate and are often much more susceptible to diseases/blight when planted in our green & pleasant land.

To ensure best success, picking up a variety from your local garden centre will hopefully set you on the right path, even if it is a bit pricier than what ever you can pick up in Tesco. Many of these will probably be a "French" variety and are much more suited to our climate and light conditions.



I appreciate that to many this might seem pretty basic but, it took me longer than I'm proud to admit to figure this out so, hopefully it's of use to someone else so you don't make the same mistakes I did in the past.

 

[Burd Turglar]

I feel that in the spirit of this thread, I should provide some info for any other denizens of the UK/Ireland as no doubt there's one or two that will read this just as I have and not have a clue where to start.

Being much further north than most of the US & Canada, what grows here and when to plant it can sometimes be a bit confusing (at least it was to my idiotic past self) as most online sources will cater to our North American cousins.

For a good resource on growing pretty much anything, the Royal Horticultural Society is actually a pretty solid go-to source even if they are more well-known for flower shows. They even have an entire section on their site about "Growing your own" which you can peruse at your leisure where they give very simple to follow step-by-step instructions.


As it pertains to garlic:

Planting season in Britain & Ireland is generally from October through to Feb, with harvest being June through August. So get planting now if you want to harvest next year.

Now due to our generally cooler climate through the year, most types of garlic you can buy from the supermarket are useless to us. This is because most are varieties imported from overseas, such as China or Mediterranean countries, and as a result the plants need a warmer climate and are often much more susceptible to diseases/blight when planted in our green & pleasant land.

To ensure best success, picking up a variety from your local garden centre will hopefully set you on the right path, even if it is a bit pricier than what ever you can pick up in Tesco. Many of these will probably be a "French" variety and are much more suited to our climate and light conditions.



I appreciate that to many this might seem pretty basic but, it took me longer than I'm proud to admit to figure this out so, hopefully it's of use to someone else so you don't make the same mistakes I did in the past.

Please don't take this negatively as I'm only ribbing you but suck a fucking cock you euroscum. I was growing garlic in Wisconsin and our winters dwarf your commie shit.

Thank you for your contribution though. I feel bad when people ask me all these questions that I have no answer for without knowing what climate they're working with.

 

[torpig xmr]

I've grown a lot of my spices in my garden. That being said, I've never thought to try to grow my own garlic. What you are saying about the very obviously dubious sources of this stuff, including the chinese sources being extremely prevalent on the market, I am going to seriously look into growing my own garlic. Members of my family have warned me about chinese garlic years ago and it is only getting harder and harder to avoid it.