Last fall I harvested garlic for the first time. I have wanted to for a long time; the main reason I never got around to it is that you need to start it in the fall. Meaning, that you need a free, ready spot in the garden for it. In the past, my garden changed so much from year to year, that I never had a plan in place in time for a fall planting. But, especially since switching to the no-till method, my garden is a lot more stable. 

​My garlic planting adventure started in October 2023. I had ordered Music garlic, which is by far the most popular garlic to grow around here. 

​My friend Bernice advised me to plant it around Halloween (easy to remember… Halloween -> Vampires => Garlic). I prepared my spot by ridding it of any stray weeds, adding a bit of compost on top, and loosening the soil with my hori hori knife. I separated the cloves and planted them with a spacing of about 4-6 inches. 

​Once planted, you want your garlic to create roots before the winter, but you don’t want it to sprout above ground. Planting it around 4 inches down is ideal. Before a big freeze comes, I cover it with mulch. In this case I used garden debris and pulled weeds as the winter coat. 

By mid-April, I could see small garlic sprouts – the first sign of green in the garden! By that time the weeds and debris I used as mulch had decomposed, and I had added a layer of leaves and lawn clippings as mulch. 

​By May, the garlic was doing really well. I kept it well mulched, with lawn clippings, leaves, or my favorite, pine needles. That kept the weeds – I maybe had to pull 3-4 weeds a week. Other than that, I did no maintenance (not even watering or fertilizing). 

​In mid June, the garlic scapes were ready. Garlic scapes are the green shoot in the middle of the garlic. It is ready to harvest once it’s made a complete 360 degree loop. They are delicious. Usually, I just chop them up in pieces a couple of inches long, and pan fry them with a bit of olive oil. They taste garlicky and floral. I also fermented some shredded garlic scapes which made a delicious spread. 

At the end of July, the garlic was ready to harvest. I harvested it when the lower two leaves started to dry out. I had a peek and the bulbs were starting to dry out. I pulled it all out. The next step is to dry the bulbs. It’s important to dry the garlic somewhere with some air circulation, out of direct sunlight and water. I laid a tall ladder across one of our open buildings and laid in on top. It worked perfectly. I worried a bit about not having a fan on it – some people do that – but it was no problem. The garlic is dry when you cut the stem and it’s not wet inside. It should feel like straw. Sometimes in early September, I took my garlic in. I cut the stems off (leaving a couple of inches), and trimmed the roots. I stored it in a basket in a cupboard. Last year I kept some bulbs there from the farmers’ market and they kept well. It’s now January and my garlic has kept perfectly. The cloves are giant.

In October, I planted next year’s crop (in a different spot). I planted a portion of the music garlic I harvested, but I also added other varieties: Red Krandasgar, Khabar, North Umberland, and Fish Lake.

​As a bonus, here is a picture of a garlic crusher I 3D printed. Once upon a time, I had a garlic crusher that I really liked. It was the only one that lasted (we crush a lot of garlic...) and it was easy to clean. Mysteriously, one half of it disappeared. I looked everywhere to buy another one, but they didn't sell that model anymore. So I modeled it in Fusion 360 and printed it in food safe PETG. Whenever a piece of it goes missing, I can easily print another copy of whichever half goes missing next. Drop me a note if you want the STL file to print yours. You put the garlic in, close the two halves, and twist to shred the garlic. 

​One of my new experiments this year was growing mustard seeds to make mustard (the condiment). I've long been a fan of mustard greens—they're so resilient and easy to save seeds from year to year—but using the seeds was a new adventure for me. We absolutely love mustard on homemade pretzels!

​I purchased brown mustard seeds online from Richters and direct-sowed two rows, each about five feet long. The seeds sprouted easily without any issues.

​I thinned one row to the recommended spacing and used the mustard leaves in a power bowl—they added a fantastic zing! However, I never got around to thinning the second row. To be honest, I didn’t notice any difference in the growth or yield of the plants between the two rows. Given the high germination rate and lack of impact from thinning, I might skip that step next time and sow a bit more sparsely instead.

​Mustard flowers are absolutely beautiful, with their bright yellow blooms!

I let the seed pods dry on the plants as much as possible before they started to shed seeds. Once they were ready, I harvested the pods into a large bag and spread them out on a tablecloth inside the house to dry even further. 

The next step had to wait until after the rush of the fall harvest. When the pods were thoroughly dry, I began the process of separating the seeds. I stomped on the pods while they were wrapped in the tablecloth, crushing them to release the seeds. The next step, removing all the chaff and seed pod fragments, was time-consuming. I used a colander to sift out the larger pieces and swirled the mixture to bring the chaff to the surface, blowing it away gently. For the final small fragments, I rolled the mixture down a sheet of textured watercolor paper—the round seeds rolled to the bottom while the debris stayed behind. This trick works well for most small spherical seeds. Still, separating seeds from debris was tedious, and I’m sure there’s room for me to improve my process. If you have any tips, I’d love to hear them!

Finally, it was time to prepare the mustard condiment. I followed a recipe from the Révolution Fermentation book. First, the mustard seeds fermented in a brine for two days. Then, I added a mixture of apple cider vinegar and wine infused with onion and garlic (simmered and strained) before blending. Here is a similar recipe here. I only partially blended the mixture because I love having plenty of whole seeds in my mustard. After blending, the mustard rested at room temperature for a couple of weeks. The result? Absolutely delicious! I can't wait to try it with some homemade pretzels.