Creek Shore Farms: Garlic Day's

Yesterday was another great day despite the fact that they had called for a bit of rain we only received some late in the evening. So if you have a splendid day to work with what do you do? Well my father (David) and I decided that we had best be getting our garlic out of the ground. We probably could have done this two weeks ago but it is one of those things that is in the forefront of ones mind. So we harvested 1 3/4 of a row all of which was Music garlic. Our first batch was a bit small but our second batch all of the bulbs were very large.

Garlic right after it was pulled out of the ground

My dad shoveling garlic out of a very grassy patch

So after the garlic was all picked we took it back to the barn where it has to be dried for a number of weeks. It is important to keep lots of air circulation around the bulbs so that they dry well. You can see in the picture below that they are on wooden boards with slats between to encourage air circulation.

Once the garlic is dry we will clean them (they are pretty dirty), cut off the stems and roots and have them ready for our winter csa (information available on our website www.creekshorefarms.ca).

So because I don't have enough to do already I have again been making raisins. I bought my first batch of grapes at the farmers market from my neighbour vendor Kathrine. They were sovereign coronation grapes and they make wonderful raisins. They are very sweet but they make wonderful snacks and are excellent in muffins or any baked good.

Dried grapes!

You may ask well what is the process to make raisins. All I can say is simple. So purchase some grapes i did a 1.5 liter basket. This only made one ziplock bag full of raisins. Remove them from the stems place on dehydrator sheets whole (I sliced them last year to make the processes quicker but I would not do it again. The whole raisins are better). Slide the sheet into the dehydrator and turn onto high. Let them stay in there for about 48hours. And you have raisins. Making raisins may not be cost effective but it sure beats store raisins!