It has been almost 4 weeks since I took out my first experimental garlic from the garden. What everyone writes about this is that when the stems are starting to turn brown that is when they are almost ready to harvest. But they also write about that this should be later in June or July and that for this it just seemed a bit early.
So I decided to take out the first one of the harvest just to see what was going on over there.
As you can see the bulbs are almost fully developed but they don't see it all coherent. They seem like separate bulbs and there isn't a nice little peel running over there as yet.
New stash!
Now it was a couple of weeks later and al of the stems had turned brown and dry already. A couple of stems were already totally detached so it was really time to make a move and take everything out.
I started digging and actually I had to go quite deep to find all of the bulbs again. That already is quite interesting because I planted the old cloves not that deep at all.
And there it was, missing bulbs deep in the sand. 7 pieces of them!
And they looked so different than the previous one that I had taken out. There is a serious peel around them and they are a lot bigger than the bunch of separate batch of cloves that I had found earlier.
So I brushed off the sand for a bit and now I left them to dry in a dark and cooler place. I will do that for at least two weeks. The interwezb always says that you should only brush them off and should not wash the peel. It needs to dry. You should braid the stems together and them leave them hanging so they can get good air flowing in there.
But because most of the stems are missing already, the braiding part had become a challenge. So I just will turn them every day so every a different part can get some air.
And the taste?
And what about that taste of the one that I had taken out already? Well, it was nice and sharp in taste and it was the perfect flavour enhancer.
Heck, I did a experiment thing again!! I have grown me some garlic and I am damn proud of it :)
Without a doubt one of the crops I would love to grow but my climate does not allow it. I admire you I know you have to have a lot of patience to grow garlic. One of the most delicate crops. Congratulations
The funny thing is that it was not so delicate at all honestly. I just stuck them into the ground last year november and literally didn't do anything about it. But indeed...it does take time for them to actually grow.
Good one, there are various ways to use garlic now
It is visible difference between first garlics and the ones that waited little longer - now you can decide easier when to harvest . You must be careful since they can rot if they stay too much in the ground
This is prequel for next garlic planting and harvesting story
Yup it was definetely time to take them out of the ground because the stems were completely dry and some of them were gone already. It has been more than dry and warm here so I guess this is a bit earlier than usual.
yeah the taste...I will know in two weeks when they are cured
I have always been amazed how garlic looks like onions after they are harvested. I'd seen newly harvested garlic many times, and it really looked like onions 😅
Congrats on your harvest! May you save the biggest cloves for next planting and make sure to rotate where you plant them to avoid disease buildup. Enjoy the harvest and keep on planting! 💚
I just might to so and save one indeed for planing later on in the year, that is a good one`!