Harvesting Garlic

Last September when I started this blog, I began with planting garlic.  If I could only grow one crop, it would be this one.  It's planted at a time when the garden is winding down.  It develops roots while the rest of the world is going dormant and springs to life when rain is abundant.  In my garden, garlic needs a bit of water as I am essentially gardening in very big containers, but really, not much water is required even in my garden.  Nevertheless, garlic has to be the easiest crop to grow and probably gives you the biggest bang for your buck.  Once you've purchased your first bulbs, you never have to buy again unless you want to try new varieties.

Now that we are in the latter part of July, the leaves are sere and brown and it's time for harvest.  We have grown 2 varieties, the names of which I have long since forgotten, but they produce lovely big bulbs which last us well into spring.

First, I pull up all the plants, keeping the varieties separate which is easy because one kind was considerably taller than the other.  I only briefly lay them on the ground and separate them into bundles  tied with twine which is looped at the top for hanging.  Garlic should be dried in the shade and not left to bake on the ground in the sun.

The bundles are suspended from nails and will hang under the bench in my potting shed.  When completely dry, I'll cut the bulbs from the stems and the roots from the bulbs, gently brushing off loose soil.  We store the garlic in open paper bags in a cool dark area - in our house that's in a cupboard on an outside wall.  We've tried many other ways of storing garlic and this has proven to be the best.

Fresh garlic is amazing!  The cloves are crisp and juicy, and we'll use a lot while it's at its peak of perfection.  I will, of course, save the biggest bulbs for next fall's planting.

I'm actually a little disappointed with this year's crop.  The garlic didn't get the benefit of the SeaSoil that the rest of the garden received and the bulbs are a little smaller than we usually get.  Next year's cloves will be planted where the snow peas grew, which would have put an extra jolt of nitrogen into the soil.  I'll have to buy a couple of bags of SeaSoil to add to the soil and homemade fertilizer will be scratched in just before the cloves go into the ground.  And so the cycle begins again.