Digging and Processing Garlic
A year’s worth of garlic and seed for next year
Yesterday I spent the morning digging and processing garlic to cure. This is how I do it with mulch down.
First I move the mulch back 6 – 8”. I do this for 2 reasons:
• It’s very hard to dig through mulch
• It preserves the mulch by keeping it clean for reuse
I had 2 short rows planted around the leeks and shallots and I did them first. One row was Chesnok Red. I needed to keep that separated from the German Extra Hardy that’s the main crop. I put the mulch back down as I finished each row. This keeps it clean so weeds won’t grow on top of it.
Those 2 short rows filled the tote. The white bucket is for weeds and waste as I find it.
The way I dig is I use a straight blade shovel and put it in straight down 6” – 8” away from the shank of the plant. Then I gently lift the soil, pulling the shank from close to the bulb as possible as I lift the shovel. The bulb usually comes right out.
I plant 6” down in the fall and sometimes one is deeper, or is a very large bulb. If I am not real careful the edge of the shovel will damage the side of the bulb. These cannot be cured.
Row 3 finished and mulched. This mulch was put down last fall, pretty thick. But the worms have been at it since then and it is getting thin. So I must pull from the next row as I work, to make it thick enough.
The garlic is all dug and I ran out of mulch. I need to go around to my usual haunts and see if I can find more.
I got 4 full totes and the Chesnok Red. Next I need to process it for curing.
I do not like to put the garlic away dirty. It’s hard to use when cooking if the skins have dirt on them. For years I washed the bulbs before hanging.
But one year a garlic producer told me she peels the first 1 or 2 skins off instead. So I tried that one year. I found the garlic did not store in my root cellar anywhere near as well as it had in the past. So I am back to washing it.
Chesnok Red 2018
Chesnok Red 2017 (Note tie with hanging loop)
It’s a bit hard to tell, but the bulbs from this year are a bit larger than they were last year. My seed practice is to save the bulbs with the biggest cloves and only plant those big cloves. I was given this variety and it had been grown in Washington state. It did not much like it here. So each year I save the ones that did the best and someday I will have nice large happy Chesnok Red.
German Extra Hardy
You can see these bulbs are considerably larger than the Chesnok Red, if you use the table edge as a gauge.
The damaged ones
I planted something in the vicinity of 300 plants and these 15 were all I damaged. The damaged ones will be made into pickles on Thursday. They will not cure and don’t store well in the heat.
The shanks are laid in a staggered fashion, 8 to a bundle and tied tightly with baling twine. I fashion a loop at the end of each string to hang with.
They will hang in the woodshed for about 3 – 4 weeks until the onions are ready to cure. The onions will take their place.
Once these have cured I will trim off the shanks and roots and grade it. I will save out enough bulbs so I can only plant the biggest cloves from each one. The remaining cloves will be eaten.
Garlic harvest from 2017. Left to right:
Chesnok Red (red bag eating, purple seed), German Extra Hardy 3 bags (2 yellow, 1 red) of eating garlic, 2 red bags of seed garlic
You can see how much smaller the Chesnok Red is.
Thanks for the share, and the tips on washing them!
Those are beauties!
What a wonderful post! I just planted garlic for the first time last year and have been wondering how to harvest. I harvested the scapes earlier to make some homemade salad dressing and to use as seasoning on grilled meat.. but now I know how to do the garlic and bulbs itself.
I realized with your reply I had not said exactly when one harvested garlic. You wait until the bottom 2 leaves turn brown.
Basically, as each leaf turns brown, the skin over the bulb that it formed starts to decompose. The longer you leave the garlic, the fewer skins the bulb will have. This will affect how well it stores and cures.
Planting is one very difficult undertaking, apparently it needs just too much attention! So i heard. But you have obviously mastered the art and science of growing it.
Excellent information! I'm planning on putting in some Garlic for this next season here in NY. Thanks for sharing!
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looks great!! nice harvest :) we too grow chesnok red; it hasn't been very happy here either. of course, like you we save the biggest bulbs for planting them :) over time we'll get bigger more adapted seed stock.
Looks like a very nice haul. Congrats your garlic bulbs are very nice and white. That is a lot of garlic.
A year's supply for the family, plus my seed for next year....
That is what I was thinking but I didn't know if you sold a large amount and just keep a little for yourself. Very nice harvest.