Pulled my garlic today!

[thistlebloom]

This is my first real year growing garlic. I'm not counting last year where I kinda goofed up the bed in spring, even though I did harvest some.

So, today I harvested 40 bulbs and a lot of them were big enough to impress me

This fall I'm going to double what I planted last year. Garlic is so fun to grow!

 

[majorcatfish]

That is some very impressive garlic you have there!!!!! A pat on the back is deserved
Growing garlic is fun ...can Taste the garlic bread now.

 

[lesa]

That looks great! So glad you had success! I have always enjoyed growing garlic...not sure how this years harvest will be, with our continual rain. Enjoy!

 

[MontyJ]

It looks great! What varieties are they?

 

[Ridgerunner]

Nice job. Youre going to enjoy that.

I got mine in a couple of weeks ago. Thats elephant garlic in the middle and the ones on the ends are Silver Rose softneck.

I tried an experiment this year. A softneck garlic should have larger cloves around the outside with some of the inside cloves being pretty small. So I mostly planted the larger ones but saved a half dozen smaller ones and planted them separately to see how big they get. I was thinking that the bigger cloves might make bigger heads of garlic.

This photo is a little out of proportion, but the closer ones are the ones from those little cloves. There is a little difference, but very little. A couple of the little ones were fairly impressive. From what I saw, I just dont see a lot of reason to not plant those little ones. I did not expect that.

 

[Chickie'sMomaInNH]

i pulled one of mine up about a week ago when i was curious how they were doing. it looked like it was dying back so i thought i would take a peek. it was small but forming little cloves, i replanted it so it could finish growing. during my weeding i must have pulled a small scape up. i found it a few days ago and it was drying out with another little bulb attached with 4 cloves.

i left the scapes on my garlic so i could collect the bulbils to propagate more without taking much away from the full sized cloves when they are done growing for this season. here's hoping in a few more weeks i'll be able to pull my bulbs up!

 

[ninnymary]

Way to go Thistle! So happy you got a fantastic harvest. My garlic didn't do well this year. I used garlic that I had grown and some given to me from a field. This October I'm going back to growing the organic garlic from the store. That one did great for me.

Mary

 

[canesisters]

Wow that's impressive!
How do you store that much garlic? I mean, does it keep a long time as is or do you have to do anything to keep it a while?

 

[Collector]

Great looking harvest Thistle and ridge runner . Our garlic is about ready to harvest also, this is the garlic that we bought locally from an older couple in Four Lakes. We are excited to see how local garlic does in our garden...

 

[Ridgerunner]

What I do to store it is to first dry it out pretty well in the sun. Then I hang it in a shed where it stays dry and out of the sun but has really great air movement. (Pause Go take photo)

I leave it there until the weather starts to turn cool. Cools not too bad but I dont want it to freeze and I want it to stay dry. Then I move it to mesh bags and hang that in my attached garage. Mine normally keeps until into the spring. Softneck is supposed to store better than hardneck, but with hardneck you get larger cloves, not those small ones.

Since it is softneck garlic, I could plait the dried leaves into a braid and hang that, but this system works for me. Im sure others do it differently especially in other climates.