a braid of garlic
We have been sinking into these quiet, lazy days of summer. It has been hot, which means I fling all the windows open early in the morning, go out to do any gardening and harvesting work, then come in and close the windows to keep the house cool the rest of the day. Our days are mainly filled with reading, swimming and cooking, with the odd outing to outside places- we went a berry farm to pick marionberries and blueberries last week, and sometimes venture to the creek, or on a hike. We are missing and mourning seeing friends and family in the usual ways we are used to, but are grateful for everything we do have. The news breaks my heart every day, giving me the feeling of being stuck inside a washing machine, knocked about, choking on the same thing coming over and over again, todays bruises layering on top of yesterdays. Enough to dull your soul and let out a whimper.
A calm spot in these troubled seas, for me, is always found in keeping my hands busy. One of the things I’ve busied them with lately is braiding garlic. I harvested it a while back, usually I go for it when the outer skin on the bit of the garlic near the ground feels a bit dry and the tops are slightly yellowed. For me (in California), this is usually early or mid June. I pull them all up and trim their roots, then pull off an outer layer or two to shed the dirt- underneath, they are as luminous and silver white as the moon. I lay them over the work table in the garage to dry out a bit. It’s nice and warm in there but no direct sunlight, which helps them to dry without molding.
Once they have papery skin over the bulb part, but still have a flexibility to the stalk (not fully dry) is when I like to braid them. Even though the stems in the pictures below look dry, they are actually quite bendy still on the inside. This is my second year braiding, last year I tried it and it worked a treat, I had it hung in a darker corner of my kitchen and they lasted almost a whole year. The braid separates the heads and provides good air circulation to prevent rot/mold. Of course, it also looks beautiful, which is important, too.
It’s quite a simple job to braid garlic, if you can braid hair you can easily do it. Really the trick is not letting the stems get too dry, otherwise they will be brittle and crumble when you try to braid them. You start with three of the largest bulbs, one in the middle, and two on either side, their stems forming an X over the first garlic. These you tie together with a good long length of sturdy twine (I use jute). The length of the string gets braided along with the stems to give support when hanging. Then you begin to braid, just as you would hair, using the largest bulbs first. Left tail, right tail, add a new garlic to the center tail, repeat. Make sure the string keeps getting braided, too. At the end, wind the twine a few times around the top and tie it firmly. Tie a loop at the top of the string to hang it with, and voila, you have a lovely garlic braid, both useful and beautiful.
Hang in a spot that doesn’t get direct sunlight. One of mine is hung on the side of my cabinet, another on the cookbook bookshelf. I meant to do a video of braiding it, as I know its helpful to see the whole thing happen, but I didn’t get to it. However, there are loads of good youtube videos about it, an especially helpful one is here. Also, there are tighter and fancier ways of braiding, but I prefer the simplicity and airflow that this way provides.
tying the first three together; then braid
loop a few times and tie firmly at the top
trim the top stems
trim string and make a loop to hang with
