Garlic everywhere

July 21, 2011 and garlic is drying everywhere in and out of the house. Nearly all varieties made some garlic, some better than others. The little red "Chinese" garlic, so called by the person who sold it to me in Port Angeles made little red bulbs that dried quickly outside. The rest of the garlic is unknown after losing my planting plan:-(. I think I can guess at some and next year I will be more careful, hopefully. There seems to be many differing opinions of how to harvest and dry. I pulled all garlic as the lower leaves dried, I did not bend them over and let the green tops dry with the bulbs in the garden. Next year I will try that. I washed some as I pulled them, others I have let dry with the dirt just brushed off. I wasn't able to keep the garlic dry before harvesting because of the rain but that seems to be important to having clean bulbs.
The elephant garlic I did not pull soon enough and the outer skins have pulled away so they will not dry and hold, oh well, roasted fresh garlic is still good. I waited a week to pull some garlic from the initial harvest and that was a mistake, the skins on those are split too, so it is true that there is a narrow harvesting range, too soon, too small, too late no storage possibilities.
Doesn't seem to matter that the bulbs are drying inside or outside here in Seattle as long as they don't get wet.
Braiding is the next thing, that should be fun to figure out, some books say braid before completely dry others say when dry...maybe both will work. Photos next if my plaits look reasonable.