I do mine different than anyone i have seen post here. I trim mine and prep when i harvest. My neighbor whom i give seed garlic to… does hers the old fashioned way. Mine outlasted hers by a couple of months… not scientific i know…but to me its just simpler and it makes sense.
Someone posted here last year that leaving the tops on ‘increases flavor’… idk maybe… but mine have had 9 months to get all the flavor and my tops seem to be pretty spent.
Keene also seems to prefer cutting and prepping before drying…
“Over the years we have tried many methods of curing and this is the way that has come to be our favorite. It allows us to get most of the cleaning done at harvest time. Trimming the mass of leaves off tends to keep mold issues at bay.”
In the end just do what works best for you and theres probably not much real difference…
Yea this year I ended up just getting them out of the sun which was mentioned and then lying them sideways across a few 27 gallon rubber maid totes with no lids so nothing was touching and air flow was the best I was going to get. We’ll see how they hold up as some time goes on. Not sure mine will make it more than 6 months anyways so I’ll probably try a couple varieties next year as well so I have a bit more.
I cure it by placing it upside down on wire shelf.
How long depends on the weather. I try to put the shelf on morning sun, but roll it in the light shade 1-4, to protect of burns. I roll it in the open garage when it rains. I make sure whole leaves are brown-dry, it shouldn’t be any green in the stem. When they are dry I cut the roots, lightly rub off the excess dirt and cut the loose leaves. Then tie in the bunches and hang indoor for winter.
I hang mine too but bulbs down. Works great for me. I also sometimes clean before completely dry. Depends if I have time or not. I still have some to harvest. All new additions this year. They seem to take longer this first year. Only by a week or two. Harvesting them tomorrow but may not finish. I don’t have much time tomorrow. If not then the rest Monday.
I leave the biggest best to make bulbils. the rest I’ve slowly been harvesting, the white German hardneck and music do the best so far, I tried new types in the fall but those two are biggest here so far. I cut the scapes two or three weeks ago and have been eating my way through them.
Well I had a great garlic crop. Easy to grow plants. Over the years I have given well over half away. Now my friends ask if it’s ready yet. At least five friends asked me this year. That fresh hardneck garlic is hard to beat. All my friends are addicted to them! Growing them is very rewarding.
Its really great to show friends how rewarding growing your own can be. I have inspired a lot of people to start growing food.
I used to braid them then lay them on a piece of old screen in the porch shade but I got a hanging fabric rack thing and a lot of garlic and onion to dry this year so this is how I’m doing
I harvest in June here in South Carolina for true Garlic & Elephant Garlic year around as needed. I am ordering garlic & shallots for this fall now. i am going to plant five pounds to last all of next year.
I’m gonna put in a plug for Lorz Italian and Kettle River Giant as well for artichoke softnecks. Both have amazing flavor. I noticed KRG tends to have about 10% of the crop with the really short hardnecks that burst through the wrapper, and Lorz always seems to have one dud clove that struggles to grow. Even with those slight drawbacks, they’re awesome varieties well worth growing.
Thanks I’m always looking for others to try.
Transylvanian is an artichoke type, and agree they are nice. I also added Red Toch which has a nice symmetric shape, also artichoke. Transylvanian is uneven looking, a beast!
Transylvanian on the left and I think a Red Toch on the right. Beautiful soft necks.
I use a knife to collect scapes, but I have carried a knife for fifty years, so I would not know how to work without a knife on my person. Shears are in the way & over kill.
I give most of my scapes away, to many to use fresh & I do not freeze them.
I went to the yacht club last night on Russell island. All locals, friends for decades. It’s the best! Anyway I brought about 65 hardnecks with me to offer up. I saved about 15 of the largest for close friends. But here i had 65 medium to large bulbs.
I left around midnight and 8 were left. Organically grown. Only used Hollytone fertilizer at fall planting and again heavy in the spring. No more after that. You don’t want a lot of nitrogen for root crops.
Total breakdown
32 small bulbs mostly from scrape seed. I’ll plant some again in the fall.
95 medium to large bulbs from cloves. A fantastic hard neck crop. 17 of the largest was saved for seed. I may use a few as usually I save ten. So many super large bulbs this year. I try to seed at least one of every variety. But they often get mixed up. I’m not the best at keeping track. One can always buy more.
Anyway it was fun to give away and demand was strong. Nice to see. I’m blessed to have such friends. It makes life so much richer. If I need help with something a dozen people show up to help. It’s such a joy to live in such a tight knit community.
The moon was out last night and I thought I would test my iPhone 15 pro camera. Wow! Impressive!
So I have a very special strain of garlic that was given to me, unfortunately it started rotting and sprouting before fall so I had to plant it a couple weeks ago or I would have lost it.
It is just starting to sprout through the ground now, but I’m wondering how to overwinter it and “train” it to join a normal garlic grow cycle since it wasn’t planted in the autumn. Do I leave it in the ground all the way until next July? I’m worried if there’s too much top growth it may not overwinter.
Do I dig it up and replant it very immaturely this October? Will very immature garlic grow fine and survive? Even if it maybe hasn’t divided into cloves yet?
How do I save this strain? I can’t screw this up! Thanks
Since nobody else has jumped in, I’ll give my amateur advice. It sounds like you have already planted your cloves, so you have three options. 1. Hope there is enough season left to grow proper bulbs before winter. 2. Try to overwinter the garlic under a protective cover. 3. Pot the garlic and bring it inside this fall to mature over winter.
The end goal for any of these choices is to get bulbs/cloves to a maturity level where you can dry and store them properly. You should be able to store a garlic bulb in a cool dark place for a year and still be able to plant it.
Maybe another possibility would be to dig the sprouts up now and put them in the fridge until thanksgiving and then plant. I’m not sure how they would react to such a long winter, though.
Thank you, these are all great ideas, some I didn’t think of. If I covered them over the winter, wouldn’t they get too mature and end up splitting apart?
Yes I did plant them. They weren’t stored properly and some began to rot and others sprouted so I freaked out that they’d all rot if I didn’t do something about it quickly.
Assuming I get lucky and they bulb quickly enough, even if smaller than I would have liked, will they still grow fine if divided and replanted immediately after in the autumn, without any curing period? Will this work if they’re still a bit premature (small heads, too many skins etc) or technically you have to wait for the tops to die back to regrow successfully?
I wonder if the bulbing occurs with day length, otherwise why would we all plant garlic in the fall and not the spring? I don’t know much about them.
I don’t know much about them.