Schmidtke5
Assistant Cook
Hello all-- I grow garlic, and last year harvested about 30 bulbs. In past years I've just stored all of the bulbs (unwashed) in my basement until I was ready to use them, even if it wasn't for a year or 14 months or so. I put them in a large drawer so that they were at least spaced out from one another and then just left them. Humidity was really, really high down there-- about 85%, so I'm guessing that's what allowed me to do that. This past year, I started storing heirlooms and other valuable stuff down there (skis, old books, etc), so hooked up a dehumidier to make it less swamp-like. Humidity went down to about 45% with it running. I used to live in the desert where it got REALLY dry, so I didn't figure 45% humidity would dry out the garlic, but it sure did. When I went down to get some today, the bulb I picked out was basically shriveled up and powdery. So I'm definitely kicking myself, and wondering if there's ANYTHING I can do with them at this point. I guess I can just carefully add whatever powder there is to pizza, sauce etc. It certainly doesn't help that I didn't wash the cloves before storing. ..... Since I grew it and don't want to waste it, I'll do anything with it to avoid just composting it. Not optimistic though....
