It's Garlic Digging Day!

[GoDawgs]

It's garlic digging day, or at least for one of the three varieties. These were planted back in mid October. The Lorz Italian foliage has been drying down and there were about five green leaves left on each plant so it was time. The Lorz is on the left. The Siberian and Russian Infernos on the right are still putting up scapes so they have a little while to go yet.



It didn't take long to get them forked up.



I'm pretty happy with them. They're probably the best since that first time I planted garlic fall of 2016.



These two represent the largest (there were two this size) and the other is about the average of the rest. Total pulled was 38, three of which were puny 1" things that will be used right away.



Under the pole shed I took the advice of a commercial garlic grower (Pure Harvest from the other site) and stripped off the top paper layer which took all of the dirt with it. It's so much easier to do that right at harvest than to try to do it after the bulbs have cured. By then it takes forever to get those dirty dried wrappers off. I'm so glad he shared that tip!



The garlic will stay on the table for a few days and get turned daily. Then I'll tie them into bundles of about eight and hang them in the tool shed to cure for about three weeks. After that they'll be brought into the house and hung in a cool closet where they'll stay for the duration. While bundling them I'll select the largest bulbs to be used for replanting this fall. They'll be in their own bundle.

The old hoses that were replaced the other day are under the garlic table and one of these evenings I'll cut out one good length from each and put on new end fittings. It never hurts to have extra hose on hand!

[bower]

Those look awesome. Always excited (and a bit shocked!) to see you harvesting garlic so early.
I love the bed with flowers down the middle - what are they?

[GoDawgs]

@Bower, those are Giant Cactus Zinnias. That;'s the first time I've ever planted anything down the middle of the garlic bed but it hit me one day that it's wasted space that wants to be used. And so I did.

In fact, I'm taking it a step further this fall. There will be leeks down both sides of a different bed and the fall planting of scallions and onions will go down the middle of that one. Next spring the fall-planted garlic bed will probably have more zinnias again.

[brownrexx]

Beautiful! Those are prettier than any I ever harvest and whiter too. I dry mine on a wire mesh so no need for turning.

[pepperhead212]

Nice garlic! Another month, or a little less here. If it stays dry around here, like it has been, they will be nice, like last season. I'll be turning the watering off on the timer in about a week.

[GoDawgs]

I'm thinking the Siberian and Russian Inferno are maybe about three weeks out. I read somewhere that garlic (if it's one that makes scapes) is usually ready about three weeks after it finishes making scapes. We'll see.

[Cornelius_Gotchberg]

@GoDawgs; spectacular lookin' Garlic, and hopefully what we'll have in 5 to 6 weeks!

This may raise eye-brows (or elicit eye-rolls), but I rinse my bulbs and dump the soil-laden water back into the empty beds.

After a day or so of air drying, they go into the basement where they have a fan on them for the 1st ~ week, wait ~ 2 1/2 weeks until I remove most of the stalks; the well-above average above results speak for themselves.

The Gotch

[brownrexx]

@Cornelius_Gotchberg I used to rinse mine too but then one year all of the wrappers had ugly water stains on them after they dried so not I no longer rinse them. It didn't hurt the garlic, it just looked ugly so now I air dry them and rub off any dried soil.

[pepperhead212]

I never rinse my garlic, either - just brush the soil off with a stiff brush. And check this out - I just went down and got 4 more heads from my basement last night, and the heads are rock hard! It's Music, which has always stored well here, though it was so dry before harvest last season that everything stored well, even Estonian Red, which I always use first, as it does not store well. The sprout in these Music was just becoming visible - the last 2 varieties had it turning green already, though still good, after 11 months.
Music garlic - still great on 6-7 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Music Garlic from the 2021 season. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

[Danny]

Beautiful garlic !!

[pepperhead212]

3 days ago I harvested my garlic scapes, and made something with a few of them. Those filled a 2 gal ziploc bag, barely able to jam them in!
Garlic scapes,6-16 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

[bjbebs]

Garlic came out yesterday. A bit on the small size due to a hot-dry May and June. Last years is still quite usable. Out at the big patch today getting equipment ready. Had 1/3" of rain at midnight but I'll be able to get at it by mid afternoon. Weather permitting, should be done by the weekend.

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[GoDawgs]

Those look good to me! Pretty garlic, @bjbebs. Good job!

[Dee]

This thread makes me happy. Love the updates and pictures!

[JRinPA]

July 8th 2022
We still have a handful of bulbs from last year in good shape, but it was close. Not like some years when I harvested 125 or more and had dozens left over. Last year I only harvested about 80-90. I planted about the same in these rows.

I got mine out before this ACTUAL LIQUID RAIN FALLING NOW as I type. But it looks like that is breaking up already and we won't get much, if any. Five miles away the radar showed red and purple and the wind whipped through for a minute, but when it got to us, light green on the radar. I thought we would get it as it was coming from WNW.
Anyway.
It has been dry, but the garlic looks great. I had pulled 1 that looked bad, then 6 that looked rough last week. The rest look beautiful. Most still had 567 green leaves but I thought it was time. I may have used the drip once (pump was dead this spring) but I did water with hose into holes...maybe twice this spring and then again the day I broke the scapes off. That last time I only watered the side with intact scapes. I was thinking I would end up leaving the intact scape rows in longer, for a delayed harvest.

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I broke the scapes off somewhat late. I don't see a measurable difference between broken and intact. If I broke off the scapes 10 days earlier, maybe there would be a size difference to note.

I'm pretty happy with the haul and now I can play with some bulbils as starts and get these beds turned around for cole crops this fall.

edit to add: last pic, fifth from the bottom right....that thing was built like an onion and had many green leaves left. It is still round. It looked like it would have grown another inch with time... That one, I need to pay attention for when it comes to cloves and bulbils.

[bower]

Those look great and very nice big bulbils JR!
I think if I had a "round" the size of a bulb like that.... I'd plant it! And hope to get a truly gigantic divided bulb! It could happen...

[rxkeith]

my garlic is all dug.

size of bulbs is smaller over all than i would have liked.
things i have noticed through out the growing season.
some small sections of garlic never came up.
the garlic on the edges of the gaps had distorted growth. when those plants were dug, i saw very little root growth.
a lot of the smaller bulbs had sparse root growth, not the fibrous mat a healthy bulb should have. the bulbs were lifted
with a shovel so very little root growth would have come off. the large bulbs had the best root growth.
martins fared the worst. i planted about 35 cloves last year. about half did not come up. the other half was small. only four bulbs
were of decent size. martin had said his bulbs could get to three inches in diameter. nothing close to that here.

the garlic crop last year was good. all cloves planted last fall looked to be in decent shape.
the previous year, i had tomatoes growing where i planted the garlic. the tomatoes did very well last year.
that area had been a strawberry bed for several years. i don't know if the previous crops affected the garlic growth.
i rotate where i plant the garlic each year. i won't be using that spot again any time soon.
i will cut some cloves to see if there is any damage by critters or what not.
at any rate, i still have plenty of garlic, just smaller bulbs than normal.


keith

[GoDawgs]

@JRinPA , outstanding harvest, sir!

@rxkeith , there's no telling sometimes what causes stuff. Did you say that tomatoes grew there before this recent garlic crop? I can't imagine tomatoes having a negative affect on garlic. That's so disappointing when something doesn't grow well. Maybe have a soil test done in that spot just for the heck of it?

[JRinPA]

@rxkeith that is odd that there would be dead spots. Any reason that those spots would have seen excess flooding/freezing during your long winters? I recall you said that the spring would never end, you were plowing through snow for a long time this year. Maybe water built up at those spots and froze in mid spring?

Someone on tville recently mentioned their garlic died off, like 75% of it. They were up your way latitude wise.
edit: it was garden patch, 6/50 survived in Toronto. I haven't had that around here.

[Meganp]

@JRinPA stunning harvest