divaqs's Blog

Harvesting Garlic
Jun 4, 2007 | 10:22 AM PST
Tags: softneck garlic , harvest , chinese pink , Allium sativum

This weekend I harvested my garlic.

 

For about 3 years now I have been growing Chinese pink garlic, described by the seed company I got it from, territorial-seed.com, as:

“Very early season. Garlic lovers rejoice! When fall planted, this extra-early-maturing variety will put fresh garlic back into your favorite recipes a whopping 4 to 6 weeks ahead of almost all others. You will be harvesting Chinese Pink late May to early June. All your garlic-loving friends will be green with envy. This fine quality softneck has 9-15 large cloves arranged in two layers, which makes most of the cloves of usable size. It has white outer skins, pinkish-purple inner skins, and pink clove wrappers; stores for 4-5 months. Chinese Pink has a nice mellow flavor that everyone can enjoy.” 

I knew it was time to harvest since the bulbs had reached full size and the leaves were starting to brown and lay down. You know the bulbs have reached their full size when the shape of the cloves begin to bulge through the bulb wrapper. If I waited longer, the bulbs wouldn’t have gotten any bigger, but might have split or cured wrong. If you wait until all the leaves have turned brown and died, then that is too long.

I like growing very early garlic, since it leaves me a lot of growing season for other plants.

Like in previous years, I am planning on keeping the garlic in a dry, cool, shaded, and well ventilated location for a couple of weeks, so the bulbs can properly cure. I then will remove the stems and store them in a open container in the cupboard. One year we kept some in a sealed ziplock bag and they quickly degraded, so I know now to keep them ventilated for storage.

I am also planning to set aside the biggest cloves for re-planting in the fall, in about October, like I've been doing for the last few years.  My belief is that by selecting the best cloves each year and re-planting them, I will continue to improve my garlic from year to year via natural selection, so with time it will be better suited for my particular micro-climate.  I do this with some of my other garden plants as well, which is why I try to get open pollinated or heirloom seed whenever I can.

This year, since I have so much garlic, I am thinking about further drying some and powdering them for garlic powder. I’ve found garlic powder to be an easy way to use garlic on things like homemade garlic bread, and have always wanted to try making some of my own.