Garlic question

hornstrider, I have the opposite. The garlic stalks are browning but my onions are still strong and green. Found this on Goumet Garlic Gardens website:

Once any given variety of garlic starts losing its leaves and there are still eight leaves left (a week to 10 days from harvest), discontinue watering and let the soil begin to dry out some so as to make harvesting easier - it's easier to pull garlic out of loose soil than mud.

HTH.

Mary, I wonder why they keep stating to "pull" the garlic. I thought they said NOT to ever pull the garlic but to dig it because, especially when the soil was dry, that the tops break off.

I don't know Jnette, it may just be semantics.

I dig my garlic, wouldn't dare try pulling in my soil.

I think it's just wording-pull= taking out of the soil. And maybe they figure that digging carelessly could cut into the bulbs? Anyway, I do it the easiest way! Sometimes the *experts* don't give us credit for possessing any common sense!

I gently lift out mine with my hands. That way I can feel where the bulb is and get each one out of the ground without damage.

We harvest our garlic by pulling and we have clay soil. It has never been an issue.

Only the hard neck garlic have scapes. We usually harvest the mature garlic in July. The scapes are sometime in the May/June time frame. If you cut the scapes to early then they keep growing and if you cut them too late then they are tough.

We also only harvest when most of the bottom rows of leaves are turning brown from being ripe (as opposed to not getting watered enough). The bulbs get washed off and then hung to dry for a couple of weeks.

Wow things change in a hurry.......soil is moist, and I have brown bottom leaves..........elephant garlic looks tired......scapes appearing......should I quit watering?..........then what?

Horn, My EGs look exactly like yours. A few of the larger stalks are near wrist thickness. I removed the scapes a few weeks ago. Only a few lower leaves have turned brown. The main/larger leaves still green.

Curious, I dug down....and was disappointed, no bulb. Looks like they are widening a bit, but as it looks now....I still have a long way to go and they sprouted 150 days ago. Is that normal? Regardless, I'm in for the long haul. Gonna wait until they really start dying before I dig'em. Hope they start forming bulbs soon.

Similar here. VERY small bulb but they the stalks are dying back. Maybe I'm under-watering - at the point I saw some brown stalks, and thinking I would be harvesting soon, I cut back a bit on the water.

Well dang.....I just stuck my finger down, and I felt a bulb.....I mean its much bigger than the stalk from what I can tell.....my stalks are probably your wrist size, not mine......but it has bulbed I am sure.....I guess I will leave them......I planted in oct......help

You mentioned earlier that you planted elephant garlic along with regular garlic. Which one had the bulb?

Elephant garlic.....I did.not try my reg garlic. Reg garlic is still standing tall.

This message was edited May 1, 2012 6:23 AM

Horn, I planted mine, regular garlic, in October, but I don't expect to harvest until maybe July. But then I am not in Texas either.

We had such a mild winter and it's already been warm, so the garlic is probably going to need to be harvested earlier than normal. I planted mine in late October and it's almost ready to harvest. Many of the lowest leaves are dying, which is an indication that it's getting close to harvest time!

Looks really cool Stephanie. Good for you.

stephanietx.........wow mine looks like yours. When are you going to pick?.......I am a bit warmer down here in Central Texas. I picked most of my onions over the weekend. My onion crop was nothing to brag about. It's OK, but not like years past. I saw Dreaves crop on another thread, and his onion crop was impressive.

Also what is the best way to cure the garlic? I asked a similar question on the onion thread about onions. Please give a step by step method to follow.

This message was edited May 8, 2012 8:15 AM

Mine is still in the ground. I will wait another couple of weeks. More of the bottom leaves need to be dried up. I usually just use a pitchfork to dig up the dirt around the garlic, far enough away from the bulb to do any damage to the bulbs, though. You don't want to pull it by the stalk and you don't want to cut or bruise the bulb. In the past because I've not had much, I've just laid them out on my compost sifter (wooden frame with hardware cloth) for a few weeks until the rest of the stalk dries up. We have a large area that has a carport covering that doesn't get any sun and that's where I've left them to dry. This year, though, I might have to bunch them up and hang them from the ceiling in my laundry room because I have so many. You want them to cure in a dry place with little to no direct sunlight.

...and DON'T WASH the dirt off, just shake off what you can. When they are fully dry they can be wiped with a dry rag before bringing into the kitchen.

Sounds wonderful. Mine are just skinny stalks about a foot tall right now. This was the nicest and warmest day we have had. 72 degrees. You guys can't comprehend that can you?

We just started harvesting the garlic scapes. Cooked some for dinner tonight.

My garlic is also doing awesome this year. I have about 25-30 bulbs growing.

I planted some tomatoes in between the garlic since I will harvest the garlic in another month or two. I am hoping that this experiment works out well. Any thoughts on this?

urbanveggies412 - interplanting crops is a great idea. I have onions interplanted with sweet potatoes. Sweet peppers interplanted with onions in another raised bed. Peas interplanted with onions in yet another raised bed.

The onions don't seem to mind other veggies growing all over them. I got this idea last year when I ran out of room to set some onions - so I stuck them in the same bed as the melons. They grew and made large bulbs despite being almost smothered by the melon vines.

I suspect you could do something similar with garlic, although I haven't tried this, YET!

Roses like garlic. So if you have some roses, plant garlic around them. It deters lots of pests and disease.

I have just interplanted Witloof Belgian Endive between my rows of garlic. The garlic will get dug about the time the endive plants need more room. Last year I interplanted veggies all over my flower beds, with great success and fewer pest problems.

I have a huge mole/vole problem, and I've been adding powdered garlic to the planting holes for everything this year. So far I've only lost 1 seedling and it probably wasn't due to a tunnel rat.

Maybe I should beg/borrow/rent/adopt a "Jack Russel" terrior - although I doubt I'd have much garden left after she dug up the last vole!

I almost purchased a Jack Russel before I purchased my Maltipoo, but someone pointed out what great "diggers" JR's are - so I changed my mind.

Same thoughts here on "diggers" LOL.

Si - me too. My cavaliers don't dig but they love to roll in fresh compost - or anything else stinky. For the digging issue, see my thread about cats! grrrrr....she's a sweet kitty but when she's gone, no more cats.

Yes, my Siberian made a bigger hole (mess) than the moles did. She dug up the whole garden going after the mole.

Help garlic experts. I dug up one clove of Elephant Garlic, and it looks like an onion. The cloves have not formed. I have quit watering them. How long before the cloves form? Or will my garlic form cloves?

Horn,

From what I've read, all you can do with the single clove elephant garlic is replant it next year for a full head. It is my understanding that if you plant the small, hard, cloves that form with the elephant garlic that the first year they will form a single bulb. If that bulb is replanted then it will grow a larger bulb, of cloves. If you plant the large cloves from a head, then they will normally form multi-clove heads and some of the smaller, hard cloves. I've only planted one year, and I had a few small cloves that grew into single bulbs, The larger cloves I planted grew into heads, but they also formed some extra, very small, hard, cloves.

.My garlic looks kind of scrawny. Is there a fertilizer or something I can put on it to make it bulk up? I haven't dug any, just going by what the foliage looks like.

We don't harvest ours until sometime in July. It takes that long for a fall planted garlic crop to mature for us. In the meantime, you can either use the green leaf tips for cooking with or pull an inmature garlic bulb to use like a green onion.

I'm going to harvest today and tomorrow, which is definitely early for us. It's a bumper crop this year. I don't know if it was the mild winter or the new varieties or what, but I'm going to have a LOT of garlic!

What variety did you plant Nicole?

Lorz Italian and Broadleaf Czech. I dug up half the Lorz Italian this morning and this was the "small" stretch of plants. Nice full heads, a couple of little ones and a couple of big ones.

Considering I dropped the cloves into unamended clay loam, top dressed with some semi-finished leaf-compost and a little cottonseed meal, and the beds were full of weed, I'm impressed they've performed this well.. The Lorz Italian will scorch your tongue off right now so I hope it mellows a bit while drying!

I have a few questions, growing garlic is pretty new to me. I pulled a few today for a test. I got about 6-7 with large formed bulbs and 2-3 that didn't form cloves(like hornstrider showed above). They were all planted from the same sized cloves. Did I pull the ones that didn't form too early? Or does that just happen from time to time with Elephant Garlic?

I'm more than happy with the first ones I pulled, but now I have to wait 3-4 week for them to dry? Could I speed up the process by sticking a few bulbs in the dehydrator a couple hours a day until dry?

RayDer, you do not have to dry garlic before using. My garlic fresh from the garden is one of the delicacies we wait for all year! Roasted with some olive oil- yummm!

Ahhh! Thank you both....sounds like I should start using them whenever I need :) Then I'll let the next harvest cure for later use. I was always told you had to let Garlic/Elephant Garlic cure, glad I asked.

Jo, that's exactly what I've been wanting to do with a few bulbs. Yum indeed!