Keeping the Vampires at Bay

 Yesterday, before it rained, I dug up the garlic.  Probably should have been done back in August, while it was nice and dry.  Like most things around here, it didn't get done at the optimum time.  So of course it has rained a few times since then, and the ground is wet, and the garlic bulbs certainly didn't look like those nice white ones that I see vendors from the Okanagan selling.  

Oh well.

I also didn't get the tops cut off either.  When they are nice and young and green and first forming, you can eat those tops.  They are called scapes.  The idea of cutting them off is that the plant puts it's energy into forming nice big bulbs underground, and not into forming these bundles of tiny garlic bulblets.  

Some tops got cut off eventually, and some didn't get cut off at all.  The interesting thing was that there were both large and small bulbs formed, and it didn't seem to make any difference as to whether the stems were cut off or not.

This is what the tops eventually look like, if you don't cut them off.

If you plant these tiny little bulbs, in a couple of years you will get decent sized ones.

So I got out the hose, and gave the bulbs a good spray off.  Half of the water seemed to bounce off them and back onto me.

Now this was one job that Luna was right on.  Jake put some distance between me and the hose, but Luna was right there, bouncing back and forth on the other side of the fence.

The dirty skin was washed off, and I peeled the dead stuff off the stems.

I put them upside down in a bucket to drip dry, and they look so much better now

There you have it, garlic on a stick.

Vampires, begone!

As for me, I didn't have time to stand in a bucket and drip dry.

It was time for a change of clothes.