How much garlic do you eat in a year?

The last week or so have found me at work in the garden bringing in some of the early harvest. My big chore on Saturday was to dig this next year's garlic.

Last October I planted 99 cloves from the 2022 garlic harvest. On Saturday I harvested 94 heads/bulbs of garlic. Either 5 heads have eluded me and will send up shoots in spring, or 5 cloves rotted in the soil over winter. Despite the loss of 5 heads of garlic, the 94 is pretty good, I think.

For the past several years, I've increased the number of garlic cloves I plant by about 10 each year. So my plan is to plant about 110 cloves this October. That will take about 12 or so heads, leaving me with around 80 heads of garlic for this fall, winter, and spring. 

The heads are not large ones. For this next year, I plan on amending the soil more completely before planting and increasing the spacing between cloves. I hope this will produce larger heads next summer, which would mean each head would cover more of our meals.

We still fall short of my goal to grow our year's supply of garlic. The 2022 garlic lasted until the end of May, at which point I bought garlic powder. So, how long will 2023's harvest last us? That's a good question. I hope the 80 heads last through June 2024. That will move push us closer to the goal. Perhaps in another couple of years we'll be able to grow as much as we need for a year.

It's interesting to think in terms of a year's supply of any one food, in relation to what we grow. In modern times, most of us only think about how much of any one food we may need for a week or perhaps for 2 weeks. A century or more ago, estimating on a year's scale is something most folks always did, at least with some foods. 

I'm guessing my family goes through 2 of my smaller home-grown heads of garlic per week. That would be 104 heads per year. It sure sounds like a lot. But maybe it isn't. How's does that compare to how much garlic you and your household use in a year? Do you have any foods that you procure just once a year, necessitating the estimation of a year's consumption?

Herb Seasoning Blends For Winter Cooking Using Garden Abundance

 clockwise beginning top right:
thyme, garlic, carrot leaves, celery leaves, oregano, parsley, sage

Those of us who keep gardens, whether small or big, try to use what we grow. One area that I have fallen down on this is in using all of the herbs that I grow. With both perennial and annual herbs I tend to use what I need in summer, dry or freeze the ones that we use most, then let the rest die off.

As I was watering the parsley this morning, I noticed that I really have an abundance of this herb. I also noticed the thyme was quite prolific, as was the sage. I decided I wanted to make sure we do use these herbs. I thought I could just cut and dry or freeze each, as individual herbs. But you know, I know myself, and I could just see all of that frozen parsley waste away in the freezer, neglected for the most part.

In another area of my life related to food, I can no longer use bouillon powder or soup base for flavoring when cooking due to allergens to ingredients.

So, a light bulb went off. I could kill two birds with one stone and make seasoning blends to store in the freezer with my surplus herbs. The seasoning blends would be allergen-free for me and they'd ensure I used what I chop and freeze because they would seem more handy to me than separate bags of parsley, thyme, sage, celery leaves, etc.

Here's what I made today. I made one all-purpose soup, sauce, gravy, bread or rice stuffing seasoning blend, using lots of garlic, lots of parsley, lots of thyme, some celery leaves, lots of carrots leaves, a little sage, and a little oregano. This will allow me to quickly season homemade chicken stock, a beef stew, a meatloaf, whatever. It should be full of flavor. I didn't follow a recipe, but I used roughly the proportions I would use in most of my basic savory cooking. And I made another bag of a poultry specific blend of herbs, celery, sage, thyme, carrot leaves, and a small amount of parsley. 

The difference between the two bags is a couple of extra ingredients in the all-purpose (namely garlic but also a little oregano), and proportions. When I cook American poultry dishes (like chicken and dumplings, chicken soup, bread stuffing, chicken pot pie) I tend to go heavy on the celery and sage, with a little thyme, if I have it, and a little parsley. So the poultry seasoning reflects my use of herbs in chicken and turkey dishes. I expect to have enough seasoning in the all-purpose blend for about 10 family-size recipes and in the poultry seasoning blend, about 8 recipes worth.

I'm looking forward to having the simplicity of adding a few tablespoons of a single blend to enhance my cooking this coming fall and winter. I'm doubly glad because I harvested and processed garden produce that I might have missed.