Garlic Harvest
Well, fellow-gardeners, this is what it’s all about! This is why we work to build the soil. This is why we pull the weeds: harvest!
For some unknown reason, my article, “The Garlic Lesson,” posted back in October has been the most popular of all my garden posts with some 868 on-site readers to date (big numbers for me) and growing in popularity. That lesson has served me well and produced a bountiful crop. This picture shows a small portion of it.
For the last two days, I have been digging up the garlic and man, is it beautiful! Of course there are some scrawny ones, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a healthier bunch of garlic heads. You know garlic is ready to harvest when the outer leaves turn yellow and some of it starts to lean over as you can see in this picture. Here in the wilds of West Texas, we begin harvest around the end of April.
I carefully dug up each bulb and placed it in a bucket of water for cleaning purposes. I have tried curing it both ways: unwashed and washed and I can’t tell any difference in quality or storage length. It just looks better washed and the wife likes it that way too.
Soon we will hang bunches of garlic in the storage shed for drying and curing. I have saved the biggest and best heads for seed. We hope to double our production in 2009.
In the meantime, eat your veggies…Nonnie and Pop said so!
May 2, 2008 at 7:18 pm
WOW! Your garlic looks amazing. James has been trying to get me to grow some garlic and this post just might have done the job. Nice work.
May 2, 2008 at 8:45 pm
Thanks Shala.
For those of you living in West Texas, a good place to buy your garlic “seed” is from Gourmet Garlic Gardens, located in Bangs, Texas (close to Brownwood). When you order, tell him where you live and he will send several types for you to try out. His website is: http://www.gourmetgarlicgardens.com/index.htm. I grow China Rose, a variety he no longer seems to carry. It does very well in my soil and climate. Next year, I might be persuaded to share some. You need to plant your garlic around the middle of September. Remember to use a good organic fertilizer and some bone meal.
May 4, 2008 at 7:43 am
I failed miserably to plant any garlic for this year. Kept intending to and never got round to it. Regret it now I’ve seen yours.
May 5, 2008 at 3:26 pm
Thanks for the info, as Shala says, we are talking about growing it ourselves. However we haven’t researched it enough to know when to plant, how to plant… etc. Thanks for the pics and information. We look forward to bouncing a few questions off of a fellow Texas gardener!