When to harvest garlic
Garlic
is on my list of crops so easy I barely
post about them. I'll mention curing in a month or so since that
was our downfall last year --- we lost nearly a
third of our crop due
to improper drying.
Other than that, timing is the only
concern. Specifically, when do you harvest garlic?
If you harvest your
garlic too early, the heads will be small, and some
may not have divided themselves into cloves yet. If you harvest
your garlic too late, the outer wrapper layers will have rotted off and
the garlic head won't store well. We're looking for Goldilocks'
"just right" stage, when the heads have achieved their full maturity
but are still enfolded by several protective layers of paper.
A rule of thumb is to
harvest when the lower leaves of the garlic plant
start to die back but four to six living leaves remain. Folks say
that each living leaf equates to a wrapper layer still encasing the
garlic head. Depending on where you live and what type of garlic
you're 
growing,
the magic date may arrive any time between June and August.
I planted so many beds
of garlic this year that I
can afford to harvest a few early to get a feel for what's going on
underground. Monday, I pulled the plant at the top of the page
and cut open the bulb to see what's inside. Notice the eight
living leaves still on the plant, but only seemingly three or four
protective layers around the head. I could probably harvest the
garlic now, but I'd rather let the plants grow for another week or two,
testing at intervals to discover when the outer layers begin to rot off.
We've still got thirteen
heads of garlic from last year to eat up, so I'm in no big hurry to
harvest. I do wonder, though --- what was I thinking to plant
twice as much garlic as last year? Christmas presents? Fear
of vampires?
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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Uhm, eat it?
Getting rid of unwanted visitors?
It's also supposed to have health benefits.
Especially since you would have nothing to do with it when you were living with me, one who loves garlic!
Giving as Christmas or birthday presents sound wonderful to me!
Sheila --- I've discovered that I'll eat absolutely anything I grow on the farm. I don't know whether it just tastes better (which it does) or whether it's the pride of ownership, but it all goes straight down the gullet!
Fostermamas --- great idea!
I ended up pulling all of my garlic out of the ground yesterday. I pulled one up to test it, and the bulb was already big and gorgeous. I wasn't planning to pull them so soon, but we had to make room for a new shed so I went ahead and pulled up the bed where the shed is going to be. Most of them were mature, but I think a few were still a little too young.
I'm trying to cure them right now and so far so good. I hope this works out. We even ate one of the bulbs fresh and it was delicious.
I'm going to test ours again next week, and I wouldn't be surprised if I pull it then. Be sure to give yours plenty of air circulation when you cure them.
Last year, we tasted ours both fresh and cured, and the cured has a lot more zing!
I just read this week in the Farmer's Almanac that the first full moon in June is what Native Americans called the Garlic Moon, and it signifies that it's time to harvest the garlic. I have no idea WHICH Native Americans, east, west, north or south, however.
I just wait til the tops are 1/3-1/2 brown, then I check one. If it's not ready I wait a day or two and check again. Not very 'scientific', but it works and gets me a lot of yummy garlic.