Gourmet Garlic Trimming and Cleaning

Reader Contribution by Andrea Cross
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You have gotten your garlic out of the ground, now the next step is to prepare it for curing and storage. The two main processes involved here are trimming and cleaning, and you will find that the methods used vary between growers. It is important to determine which methods are appropriate for you and your crop, since the success of these steps will determine both how well your garlic cures and, subsequently, how long it will last in storage.

Trimming

Trimming is the first issue to consider, and applies to both hard and softneck garlic. Firstly, to trim or not to trim? The main factors in deciding this include how much garlic you have, and how you are planning to store it during the curing process. Growers producing relatively small amounts of garlic often cure it by hanging it in small bundles. With this method, there is no need to trim the leaves or the stalk unless you wish to do so for the sake of neatness. In proper conditions, the foliage and bulb should cure fully while intact.

Growers who produce gourmet garlic on a larger scale usually don’t have the luxury of space to cure garlic y hanging. Instead, we have to be rather mercenary about the whole process. Our main concern after getting the garlic out of the ground is how we are going to efficiently cure the maximum amount of bulbs in the minimal amount of space. For us, there is no question that we will have to trim the bulbs before we can continue the curing process.

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