Food | Gardentalk | Juneau | Juneau Afternoon

August 10, 2022 by Sheli DeLaney, KTOO

After garlic is harvested, it can be cured by hanging in a warm, dry place with good air circulation for a few weeks.

Master gardener Ed Buyarski says that he has garlic hanging in his greenhouses, his furnace room and his garage.

“In fact, last week I bought a dehumidifier to go in my garage underneath the garlic, and I’m emptying it twice a day.” Buyarksi says. “So I’m hoping that it will dry it better so it keeps better.”

Some of the garlic has been set aside to be eaten fresh rather than preserved. They show signs of the fungus disease botrytis. Buyarski recommends keeping them separate from unaffected garlic plants and giving them a quick rinse in a 10% bleach solution.

“We’ll eat them, friends will eat them. But we will not use that for the replanting later on in late September and October.”

A couple of days of air-drying is all that’s needed to preserve garden herbs, too, such as the oregano Buyarski grows in his greenhouse.

“Dry it just on cookie sheets in the open. I don’t bother to put it in a dehydrator.” he recommends. “Because if you heat it then you lose some of the volatile oils.”

Buyarski has even experimented with drying garlic leaves.

“That was quite a failure, that was in a dehydrator,” he says. “Made the house smell wonderful. But the next morning when we went to taste the dried crunchy garlic leaves, there was no flavor left.”

For other herbs that lose flavor when dried, like basil and chives, or are too tender for the drying process, Buyarski suggests freezing them in a baggie or even in ice cubes.

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A year after completion, the greenhouse has produced its share of successes and setbacks.

With both plants, the shoots, tips and leaves are edible and delicious in salads and sauces.

Starting now through mid-August, garlic plants will be ready to harvest. But gardeners should look out for botrytis, a fungus disease that can spread throughout crops.

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