Harvest Garlic
How to Harvest Garlic
Being able to harvest garlic is one of the great pleasures of being able to grow garlic in your backyard garden. If you have never tried growing garlic before, you will be impressed with how easy it is. The only thing to remember about growing garlic is that you plant and harvest garlic at different times of the year than other vegetables.
Most people plant garlic in the fall and not in the spring. It can be planted in the spring but the results are iffy. If you plant garlic in the fall, you can be assured of having a good crop by the time you are ready to harvest garlic the next July or August. Most people plant garlic in September and October. If you live in a cold area, you should do it a couple weeks after the first heavy frost of the fall.
An important thing about garlic is that it has to be harvested at just the right time. That’s because if you harvest garlic too early, the bulbs won’t be completely formed. And, if you wait to long, the bulbs can split and your whole crop will be unusable. So, pay attention to your garlic when you are approaching harvest time.
If the leaves are getting to be brown, you need to start checking your garlic to see if it is ready to harvest. Do the first test when around one-third of your green tops have turned brown. If you don’t have a lot of garlic, you can gently dig down until you see one of the bulbs to check its size. If you have a lot of garlic plants, there is no harm in digging out a sample to see how big it is. It will probably be big enough to use if you do it right away, but if not full size, you will have to have some patience and wait a little longer.
By the time one-half of the stalks have turned brown it is time to harvest your garlic. Waiting longer than this will make it inedible. If you planted in the fall, depending on where you live, this usually happens in late July in the warmer areas and August in the colder regions.
When you decide it is time to harvest garlic, do it by digging the garlic up and not pulling it out. If you pull on the dead stalks, they will most likely just break off, leaving you to dig anyway. Take the bulbs out of the ground one at a time. Then let them dry out before storing them in a cool, dark place. Of course, you will undoubtedly rush in that very same day to see what you can create for dinner that will use your freshly harvested garlic.