Mid-Atlantic Gardening: Garlic Lovers Thread - Growing and Eating in the MAF, 1 by coleup

coleup wrote:
Hello Garlic Lovers. I've started harvesting my garlic scapes this past week.

The Elephant garlic sent up flower stalks first and then Music. Harvested enough for a good stir fry aaddition fo Memorial Day meals!

Garlic Man has been cutting scapes for about two weeks now and offering small bunches of them for sale at the Farmers Market. along with what he calles garlic onions which are like green onions but really are first year garlic grown from bulbils.

According to him, once the scapes are up and cut the garlic is in to bulb completion time when it forms the wrappers that protect the cloves and make them store-able for the long term. Kinda like each aboveground leaf represents one wrapper. When four or so of the bottom leaves turn brown it is time to harvest. He estimates 2 - 6 weeks post scape cutting to harvest, of course depending on weather. Garlic needs to have green leaves to cure properly, unlike onions that you just let die back before harvest.

Since I am growing all of my garlic in containers, in 'potting soil' I have carefully dug down around several plants to get an idea of bulb size. Elephant is about double what I planted and others are approaching golf ball size. With warmer weather here this week I am hoping bulbs size will increase. I hope harvest time gives me bulbs the size of the ones we got from Garlic Man and used for seed!

How are you all doing?

I guess the shallots will need to have their tops fall over and dry before they are ready to harvest.

Judy

Pictured garlic 'Music' scapes Elephant Garlic flower stalk above tall bearded iris!