Yeah maybe go light this year, I add compost to my container mixes, and noticed the 2nd year they really grow well. Like it takes time for organic material to start to break down. I have had bad years with garlic, not really sure what happened? Many small ones, still good, just small. So I tend to feed them. All this talk i want to make garlic bread! I have been eating a lot of baled salmon and I use olive oil ton’s of garlic, capers, some lemon juice, and a touch of white wine. I could eat fish like that all day. A friend caught a bunch of salmon in Lake Michigan/Huron and gave me some, the wife really doesn’t like salmon but baking it like this she was surprised how good it was, and is coming around to eating more. I need to fish more this year for perch and walleye too. So much better when you catch it yourself.
not sure, if i ever see her again i’ll try to remember to ask
seemed like she was partial to softneck varieties from the way she spoke.
I like hardnecks, but after a month or so I prep them for powder and freeze some too. Which is fun, cut them thin, Dry in the dehydrator and then grind them in a dedicated to such things coffee grinder. What I do is once next year’s harvest is ready any braids leftover, and any frozen garlic will be powdered.
Sometimes I freeze them and use all year too the hardnecks. But I must say that Transylvanian, the cloves I had left after planting were very good! As good as any. The convenience of massive cloves is nice! Also the skin just falls off them so never hard to peel often tinted brown or purple so easy to see too. Some softnecks have brown skin.
I still have ton’s left
Softneck
hardneck frozen
Looking at my notes I harvested hardnecks 6-28-18 and kept them till 10-22-18 as they started to grow and skins degrade. So hardnecks are good for about 4 months at room temp. Sometimes I don’t harvest at the same time, but last year I harvested all garlic 6-28-18 so those braids have been at room temp since late June. Why sofneck is great, it has a superior shelf life! Yeah hardnecks do have a very hard neck, you cannot braid them.
I grow yellow banana peppers and like to pickle them for burgers and sandwiches and always throw in a bunch of garlic cloves, sooo good!! I just munch on them. They mellow in the vinegar and have an excellent flavor. Pickled garlic is delicious!
looking forward to the spring crappie spawn. its a 3hr. drive to get to them but we spend the weekend at a friends camp and come back with a 5 gal pail of fillets. they are invasive to Maine so no limits on them. usually get some y. / w. perch and bass also. i get 12-14in y. perch at my shack all day long. locals here hate them and they are considered junk fish as they too are invasive. i keep the big ones and chuck the small ones on the ice. too many in our lakes now. in our cold waters they are delicious!
To me no fish tastes as good as a perch. It is my top tasting fish. many people here only fish for them, and every restaurant serves them. Crappie are very good too, not very common here, only occasionally catch them. Sunfish are good too. I throw bass back as my wife won’t eat them, They do have a taste I don’t like but feel you can disguise it somewhat. Silver bass are not as bad as large and smalls. All of them are in the river. Along with Muskie, pike, sturgeon, sheep heads, rock bass (these taste terrible to me), sucker (2 types), carp, Salmon, gar pike, channel catfish, and mostly walleyes which are rather bland but never fishy. Baked is the best way to cook walleye for me. I fish for them because they are much bigger than perch and you can catch a few dozen meals worth in a day. Biggest one I caught was 11 pounds 3 oz. Most run about 3 pounds.
You freeze whole cloves?
What do you do when you use them? Thaw and use a press?
Yes
I treat as if not frozen. I mostly mince my garlic, frozen or not. When I harvest the next crop any leftover frozen cloves will be sliced thinly and made into garlic powder. And I’ll freeze more in October when the shelf life of the hardnecks runs out. Garlic has little water content so not much different at room temp or frozen. You can slice both. They are not like ice cubes, they are soft and easy to slice frozen. Yeah garlic powder from fresh cloves or frozen is so good, very aromatic and tasty compared to the powder you buy.
When I do freeze they have dried for 4 months, maybe if you froze fresh garlic it would be harder, don’t know? Only freeze to stop the aging process. Biggest problem is they do stick a little, so use a very sharp knife. I use a thin clever (chop & serve) to mince. My wife uses an Alaskan Ulu. Here is an Ulu
yeah. s. new england y. perch are king! people around here laugh when they hear people actually fish for them. in my shack, i have caught 150 in a morning with just 1 jig pole! there is so many because no one fishes for them. my shacks out there for rainbow smelt, which is the best tasting fish here hands down ! the smelt bite is on until the sun comes up, then the perch move in until sunset, then the smelts start bitting again. some guys that have cabins near mine plow the lake ,so i can drive my truck right to the door. my wife doesn’t like the cold but likes to fish smelt out of the shack. we spend many evenings there. she hooked a 4lb. landlocked salmon on her jigpole there in jan.! had to help her land it! thought the pole was going to snap! i find salmon too fishy tasting for me but she loves salmon!
Cool Ulu. Whooda thought to make the cutting board match the blade. 
As far as hardneck garlic is concerned, their storage life may depend on variety. Here is my hardneck (Music) from last year and there are no signs of sprouting, as has been the case every year - it keeps til summer for me.
I pulled a few cloves from the one on the right (below the man’s face) to show size and ‘dormantness’.
One of these equal 2 store bought cloves - not just in size but in potency!
Meanwhile, back in the garden… 
Yeah Music is an exception, it does last, others do not. i added some this year. It doesn’t matter to me easy enough to freeze etc. And I have my softnecks. I prepped New Mex Green Chili stew in the crock pot just now. The wife won’t be home till 10pm. I used my garlic and also my green chili’s. One of our favorite dishes. Also my Mexican oregano. We used all of my onions and potatoes so store bought this time. It cost me $1.41 for 6 red skins. I needed to go get some. So now I can relax dinner is prepared! The original recipe is for the stove top, but the crock pot works great! Set and forget! I have not noticed any difference in flavor just a lot less time in the kitchen. I do add a roux and open it up the last hour to thicken. Sometimes I skip the roux if not needed. I love the flavor of green chili peppers I grow them every year.
Yes, variety makes a big difference. I find it pretty much matches the group/family of hardnecks Most of the porcelain types I’ve grown - music, german white, zemo, georgian fire - all keep well. But the rocambole type hard necks I grew didn’t make it to the first of the year. They don’t sprout, but start drying back from the tip and sort of dry rotting. Purple/red/striped types like your chesnok, metechi, etc. also don’t seem to keep as well as the porcelains. I just eat those first and save porcelains for the longer haul.
I’ve heard porcelains don’t do well with heat/humidity but I see VA people growing them on this forum…so they should be OK.
German White is a very reliable here and is what some of the growers at the farmers market grow exclusively. I’ve heard the rocambole types in particular and some other hard necks don’t like the heat and humidity, but anything I’ve put in seems to have grown. But my rocambole didn’t cure well and kept poorly, so I decided not to grow them anymore. It may have been my timing on harvest, but the others do so well for me I don’t take chances with the others. Metechi that I grow isn’t a great keeper for me, but I like the hot flavor in salsa, etc.
Yeah if late they degrade super fast. been there. I like the rocambole types even though they are not perfect. Very nice flavor even when in poor shape. I try one new one every year and keep the best, sometimes eliminating types. I keep what grows best. Eventually it will be all i grow, just my own. I’m still experimenting. It’s only my first year planting porcelains, and plan to try others in that group.I fairly settled on the softnecks, but time will tell. Nooktka Rose is my favorite soft because of the thick skin. Easy to remove for a soft. And shelf life seems OK too, not the best, the tight skins of softs is what make them last, and N Rose is not that tight. But lasts long enough for me.
I grow music and german white
Those two seem to be the most reliable. I have to look into German White.
Well I’m bored today so I decided to dry some of my frozen garlic. I have more than I can use before next harvest. So it makes sense to do some now while I have the time. During growing season I’m not going to have a spare minte with some new land to develop, prep and plants.So I prepped three trays worth of frozen garlic for drying. Not that much really. I have enough for three more trays.
“So I prepped three trays worth of frozen garlic for drying.”
Have you ever had the garlic taste get into other fruits in the freezer? I have onions sprouting that I have toyed with the idea of chopping up, boiling, and freezing, but don’t want onion-flavored apple crisp.
No. not really. They are sealed in freezer bags. Plus modern freezers remove moisture and any fumes would be removed with the moisture I would think. I have all kinds of stuff in there. Never noticed any problems.
the romanian red i harvested last summer is still good now but a few are starting to show signs of pre sprouting. good thing I’m almost out of fresh . surprised they lasted so long. a lot longer than the german red i grew in 2017.