by now it should come as no surprise that paula and i love garlic and on this channel we've
covered everything from planting and growing it to harvesting and even preserving it as garlic
powder and garlic salt but what if you want to store your garlic in its whole unprocessed form
and better yet what if you also want to show it off at the same time well the best way that
we've found to accomplish that goal is by making a garlic braid but before we get started if you've
missed any of our previous garlic videos i've placed some links in the description because
as our regular viewers know we grow all of our veggies without any fertilizers or chemicals
and instead rely on natural techniques like deep mulch no-till and good old-fashioned rainfall so
if any of that interests you please do check them out i should also mention that there are a number
of ways to braid garlic and this method is just the one that we typically use but once you get the
hang of these basic steps all of the other options will be pretty easy to experiment with as well
the only items you'll really need for this technique are some homegrown garlic that's
already been cured and ready for storage and some string or twine however you may also want to grab
an old towel a pair of scissors and maybe even a rolling pin as well all of these are optional but
as you'll see in a moment they could come in handy now i mentioned that your garlic should already be
cured and we've covered that process previously but basically it just means that it's been dried
out for a few weeks you see when fresh garlic is first harvested it contains a lot of water content
which can make it prone to spoilage so like many other food items one of the easiest ways to get
around that is by literally just hanging it out to air dry again check the links in the description
for more details but once the garlic is dried the next step will be a bit of a cleanup the idea here
is to just brush off any of the dried soil that was left behind after harvesting if you're cool
with the rustic look then this is a good place to stop but if you want your garlic to really
shine then you can also peel off the outermost layer of the papery skin this gets rid of some
of the mud stains and makes it look much more appealing but just be sure not to remove any more
than absolutely necessary as the skin is also a protective layer so the more layers that are left
the longer the garlic can be stored for example if we take a closer look at the upper portion of
the plant we can see that each of the leaves are neatly stacked inside one another that's why it's
so important to harvest your garlic before all of the leaves have dried back because each leaf is
actually an extension of each of the papery layers around the bulb so when the leaves begin
to shrivel so do the protective coverings too few brown leaves and your garlic likely hasn't
reached its full maturity but too many and it may not fare as well in long-term storage
but either way when cleaning up the bulbs it's probably best to not be too picky so this process
should really only take a few seconds and then you just need to decide whether or not to keep
the roots personally i'm torn between which option i prefer but most seem to think they
look a little better after a trim so we'll grab the scissors and tidy them up a bit and that's it
now just repeat for the rest of the bulbs and our garlic is nearly ready for braiding but before we
continue i think we should briefly pause for some extra background information because depending on
which garlic variety you've grown the next step may or may not be necessary you see all of the
over 600 species of garlic plants can be divided into two primary categories hardneck and softneck
where neck refers to the stalk or stem of the plant in our case we only grow hardneck because
we live in canada and that category tends to fare much better in cooler climates but cold tolerance
isn't the only difference you see as the name implies hardneck also has a tough stem that starts
in the center of the bulb and continues all the way up to the garlic flower also known as a garlic
scape whereas soft neck varieties don't have a central stem at all so if you were to cut the bulb
into a cross section rather than seeing the cloves neatly and mostly symmetrically formed around a
stalk you would instead see a more random looking collection of cloves of differing sizes and shapes
plus because there's no stem there's also no escape now as lovers of delicious garlic scape
pesto this seems like a pretty big disadvantage however softneck does tend to have a longer shelf
life and a more mild flavor which is likely why it's the more common garlic found in grocery
stores but the biggest advantage to softneck at least as far as this video is concerned
is that from what we gather the lack of hardened stem makes it much easier to braid but luckily as
you might expect our fellow hardneck growers have found several solutions to that problem
and that's where the rolling pin comes in because by simply rolling it out with a bit of pressure
the stem quickly becomes more manageable however while this does work to soften up the stem
unfortunately it doesn't help with the other thing that can make braiding difficult for both hardneck
and softneck dried brittle leaves so instead we've had the best success with an old towel
for this method simply dampen the towel with warm water lay it out flat and then pile on the garlic
next just roll it up so that all of the stems and leaves are covered but the bulbs are left exposed
and then just set the garlic aside and let the damp towel rehydrate the brittle bits
but while we wait perhaps this would be a good opportunity to talk about the basics of braiding
because if you're like me that may not be a skill you've practiced very often however if you are
already a braiding expert then please also feel free to just skip this portion using the handy
table of contents below for this example i've asked paula to donate some colored yarn as it
can be easy to get lost when first braiding with the bushy garlic plants that all look the same but
as it turns out braiding is actually incredibly easy once you get the hang of it so for a standard
braid you'll want to start with three strings laid out side by side to make my life easier i'll
hold one end down with some masking tape but this won't be necessary once we know what we're doing
now the basic process is to take the red string on the right and fold it over the yellow string in
the middle the red string now becomes the middle string next we take the blue string on the left
and fold it over the red string now the blue string is in the middle and finally we take the
yellow string on the right and fold it over the blue string now all strings have been
folded to the middle once and that my friends is a completed braid now we just continue the process
of folding the outside strings into the middle always alternating from right to left and then
voila a full set of braided strings however when breeding garlic we don't just want to include
three plants in fact ideally we'd want at least 10 or more so now we need to learn how to insert
additional strings as we go i'm told that this process is basically the same as a french braid
but i barely knew what that was the first time so i'll assume that at least some of you will benefit
from this demonstration as much as i did this time the first braid is the same fold the red
string to the middle then the blue string to the middle and finally the yellow string to the middle
so far so good but here's where we add a new piece of string and the only thing you have
to remember is that it always follows the last one that you braided which in this case is the
yellow string so we'll add another yellow string alongside it now we have two yellow strings in the
middle and four strings in total next we take the red string on the left and fold it to the middle
and since this was now the last string braided we'll add another red string alongside it leaving
us with two red strings in the middle two yellow strings on the left and five strings in total
finally we'll take the blue string on the right fold it into the middle add an additional blue
string alongside it and then at the risk of sounding repetitive we now have two blue strings
in the middle and six strings in total then just repeat the process until you've either reached
the desired number of strings or can no longer keep them under control but either way that's
everything you need to know about braiding so with that let's check back on the garlic most
suggest that you should leave the towel in place for anywhere from about 4 to 12 hours but you'll
know that it's ready when the leaves no longer crumble and the stem is more pliable so now just
like with the yarn we'll start with three garlic plants and it's generally recommended to start
with the largest at the bottom and then work your way up to the smallest once again we cross the one
on the right into the middle followed by the one on the left but next we need to make sure that
they stay together so let's grab a piece of the string and tie them up any string will do here
but we usually opt for a natural cotton because it's inexpensive biodegradable and food safe
once they're tied together we can finish our first braid by folding the stem on the right into the
middle however you'll notice right away that the garlic stems are quite a bit harder to work with
even after being rehydrated so you may need to bend or even partially snap the plants until they
fit into place but eventually you should have your first braid complete now we can add our
fourth garlic on the right arranged so that its stem is alongside the one in the middle then just
like the yarn we have one on the left one on the right and two in the middle next we take the stem
on the left and fold it over both of the middle stems then add a fifth garlic bulb on the left
and add its stem to the middle as well this results in one on the right two on the left two
in the middle and five overall now just continue this process by folding the right to the middle
adding a bulb then left to the middle adding another bulb and so on until you've reached the
desired number of plants we typically go for about 10 bulbs because it's a nice round number but this
could just as easily be 12 or 20. it really only depends on how large you want the braid to be but
once you're happy just continue braiding the stems and leaves a few more times to lock everything in
and finally we'll grab another piece of string to tie the loose ends together do a bit of trimming
to clean up any leaves that weren't fully tucked away and just like that our braid is complete now
personally i really like this look the simple top is quick and easy to tie up and really gives it a
rustic country feel but like i said at the beginning there are plenty of other similar
options out there so now that we've covered the basics you should be ready to experiment with the
others if you're interested but in the meantime thanks so much for watching and we'll see you soon
so