OK...I know it's not a veggie, but I harvested some garlic today! It was a little small so I will leave the others in the ground a little longer. I took pics and my garlic is now hanging in the mud room to dry. I am so proud I could just bust!
I have garlic!
Here's the proud mama with her garlic babies!
Congratulations! Enjoy your garlic! Happy 4th!
Nice job! They look good. I've been digging out the small ones that have keeled over, (they look like little onions) but holding off on taking the bigger ones for a little while longer. It's so cool- I just hope I cure them properly now!
I've been reading about harvesting garlic (garlicnoob), and have been finding different opinions as to when to dig them out. One book says when their leaves are 3/4s yellowed, and I have about 1/4 or so, on average.
What made you decide to dig? How many dead leaves did you have?
Thanks~
i just dug mine out as well--it is drying out on the back porch--It is delicious roasted! it spreads like butter onto the bread and if you store it in oil, the oil is great on fresh tomatoes with basil
I read a site that says July through August is the time to harvest. You dig them out and brush the dirt off....do NOT wash them. Then hang them to dry for about two weeks. So mine are now hanging in my laundry room....it's nice and cool there.
Here's the site I found on how to harvest garlic....has some good info.
http://www.garlic-central.com/growing/harvest.html
My leaves are about half green and half brown and the stem is all brown on almost all of them. I am going to leave the others in for another week or two......
Nice looking garlic!! We're going to grow garlic this fall. I've read that if you cut the bloom stalk it produces larger garlic pods. DG member Frostweed has a comparison pic in her journal to show the difference of the size of garlic when plants were allowed to flower and where she cut bloom stalk off. It's amazing! You can also sautee the bloom stalk and the greens for a tasty meal.
"I am so proud I could just bust!" Lol. Been there, done that, last year and this year. Good job! I think I took mine out too early but they're great anyway.
hmmmmmm.....maybe I will cut off the stalks and let them continue growing....that makes sense to cut them so that more energy goes into the bulb itself and not the leaves on top. Gonna go cut the tops now!
Hi Noobie,
DO NOT cut the whole stalk - what Stephanie is talking about is the garlic scape. If you cut that as soon as it appears your garlic will grow bigger.
The stalks are delicious when cooked. I am putting some on the barbecue today. (they were picked quite a while ago, but keep well in the fridge)
P.S. A good guideline for harvesting is when there are only about 3-4 green leaves left on the garlic plant. Each green leaf represents a layer of skin on your garlic. You don't want to harvest too soon, but if you wait too long, like when there is only one layer left, your garlic will not keep for very long.
Here's the link to Frostweed's (Josephine) blog entry about her garlic. She has some great pics (click on them to see them larger) of the bloom stalk and the difference between the sizes of the garlic when allowed to bloom and when the scape was cut.
http://davesgarden.com/community/blogs/t/frostweed/4151/
I know the bulbs get bigger if you cut the stalk off, but I let mine flower this year and the flowers are beautiful, big globes of purple--the bees love them--didn't seem to affect the bulb size too much, but it was elephant garlic which is really big anyway
That blog is fantastic. A picture is truly worth the thousand words because I would never have figured out that cooking the scapes included the flower bud.
Josephine is a fount of knowledge, twiggy, esp. about native plants.
Noobie is past scape time if she's harvesting- that was weeks ago.
Chances are she has softneck garlic which doesn't form scapes often. Hardneck garlic forms the scapes. And apparently Elephant garlic does too, after viewing frostweed's blog there. Huge plants! For I second there I was wondering why mine were so small!
http://www.garlic-central.com/varieties.html
http://www.garlic-central.com/flowers.html
OK- what is a scape? I am digging garlic now and they are super!
WoHoo! Congratulations! It's in my plans for fall... Let us know how it tastes...
Hi Jo,
I cut my scapes a while back, so I have no photos of scapes still on the plants, but here's a photo of a couple of cut ones.
Garlic scapes are also known as "garlic spears", "stems", or "tops". '
Immature scapes are tender and edible. Scapes generally have a much milder taste than cloves, though yesterday I barbecued some that were quite spicy. Scapes are often used in stir frying or prepared like asparagus.
this is all great information guys! Keep it coming!
The scapes are the thinner shoots that form out of the top leaves of the garlic plant when it's time to flower. For the hardneck garlic, they have a whacky, noodle-y shape like essentialplanet's picture there. You can see the flower bud if you look closely, it's the pyramidal shape where the curve starts to straighten out & taper.
(Google Images has some great examples, just type in "garlic scapes" and hit Images.)
I taste tested mine raw, and it was hot! Whoa! But, as noted, they're very good in stir frys. I chopped & roasted some with green beans, a splash of soy, & olive oil- they mellowed out and were delicious.
There's a whole bunch of information on the Gourmet Garlic Gardens website, too.
http://www.gourmetgarlicgardens.com/index.htm
There's detailed info on planting and harvesting. Be sure to watch the video so you can see the guy who owns the garlic farm chowing down on a whole raw bulb of garlic!
It's great to see your lovely garlic! I have some pictures of the flower stalks (scapes ) still on the plants. This was earlier in the Spring. I just harvested mine also. I live in the Northwest where the summers are often not too hot and it rains up through June most years, so my garlic leaves take a while to dry down. My bulbs are usually mature when there are still 6 green leaves on the plant. It might be different in other regions.
That's a perfect example of the noodle-y scape, thanks for sharing it.