We had three weeks with no significant rain. I started digging garlic Tuesday morning and we got an inch Tuesday afternoon. It's been raining, on and off, ever since. Deja-Vue all over again! My take away from last year's Great Garlic Debacle was "if you're digging garlic and it starts to rain, dig faster". I'm cutting most of the mud off with the roots and getting it on drying racks. I'll have to clean it up better later but keeping it from rotting is the big thing now.

I've started covering the figs when it's raining and drained their SIP to keep them from getting too wet too.

This is how a wheelbarrow should look this time of year.
 

I've been debating on when to pull up my garlic. It's been a crazy winter and late wet spring. My early garlic and mid- to late-garlic have all basically scaped at the same time. I'm probably pulling the early garlic tomorrow, the others in about a week or two.

What kind are you growing?

I thought you were supposed to let 1/3rd - 2/3rds the leaves turn brown depending on the variety.  Mine's not nearly ready.

Bob - that's definitely true. But this year it's weird. Last year my early garlic scaped in May and the later garlic in June (like it's supposed to). This year, they both went at the same time. In years past, I usually harvest about 2 weeks or so after scaping. The early garlic is starting to yellow a bit while the late is staying pretty green. I'd rather harvest the early garlic early rather than later so it doesn't deteriorate more quickly.

I had two beds planted to Inchelium Red and Spanish Roja that took a lot of damage. I'm only getting about 8-10/40 bulbs in each bed. I've planted Spanish before, but this year it was new seed. I tend to think the extreme cold may have done the damage rather than poorly draining beds. This seed may not have experienced a severe winter before. So I'll plant the survivors and hope they come out strong next year.

You'll get a layer of "wrapper" for each leaf that's green when you harvest it. Last year was too wet too late and all my wrappers and a lot of my cloves rotted in the ground even though they had plenty of green leaves. You can see from the picture that those were yellowing and turning brown at the tips from the dry and not browning the bottom leaves like they should. Those are Chesnok Red, and I figured they weren't right and would only get wronger for waiting. I'm digging Elephant today and a lot of the bulbs are swelling from the rain and splitting the wrappers. I dug Georgian Crystal this morning and it looked good. German Hardy is coming right up on ready and I'm desperate to get it in. Persian Star has scaped but it's holding green. Spanish Roja hasn't even scaped, and it's usually earlier than Persian Star. My next door neighbor's Spanish Roja has scaped and her Persian Star hasn't, go figure.

Not sure how much more my back is going to let me do today, if I pace myself I think I can finish the Elephant. It's going to be an Ibuprophin night.

I'm leaving mine in.  Some people cut the scapes but I'm going for true seed, sexual reproduction.  There are a few people across the country getting good results and producing new varieties.  See  http://garlicseed.blogspot.com/p/growing-garlic-from-true-seed.html  if you're interested.

This brings back memories when I used to travel through Gilroy, Ca.
AKA "Garlic Capital".

You'd know you were there even if you were blindfolded.

Here in zone 5/6 I usually wait until my (purple stripe) scapes are uncurled and pointed almost straight up.  Just about then I usually peak at a few still in the ground to see if the cloves are swollen enough to see divisions between them on the outside.  I usually end up with 3-4 good wrappers after cleaning and they keep for well over 6 months.  I planted them in a wetter part of the garden so that may change this year, after your comments about our crazy winter/spring.

FWIW:  I remember reading that the cloves have the same amount of allicin whether the cloves are large or small (which is probably why some small cloves are so potent).  So it doesn't really seem to matter if they are harvested early or not, just as long as they have enough wrappers to preserve them.

I only planted 96 cloves this year, I hope it will be enough for the whole year. 

You make me jealous that you're harvesting already.  I just love to see/smell my shed full of garlic hanging up to dry. 


 

Do any of you harvest your scapes? I do each year before they straighten out. I've stir fried them and I've baked them, but my favorite way to prepare them is as a pesto. Just substitute to taste for garlic cloves and otherwise make your pesto the same way you like best and, bingo, fantastic stuff! If you've got way more scapes than you can use in one meal, the pesto freezes very well. Every cold winter night we pull some out of the freezer has us thinking of a warm summer evening eating a similar meal. Wonderful. 

I chop my scapes and pop them in the freezer for cooking all year round.  Simple, easy and delicious!

My garlic is about ready.  Just a little lazy.

I used to save the scapes but we have so many bulbs anymore and the cook just forgets to use them. I used to hang mine too but it's quicker to spread them on bread trays. most varieties I planted 120 of this year. Georgian Chrystal was the last one harvested last year so I lost more of it to rot and I only had about half as much to plant. But, then I planted about 300 Elephant Garlic. They took a beating from the cold, and the Chrysalis Purple was almost wiped out, but I still have around 1000 bulbs to harvest.

There's an Amish farmer nearby with a roadside veggie stand, He keeps bees and taps maple. He sells my garlic and pays me off in honey and syrup, it's sweet.

If I had to choose just one garlic to grow it would be German Hardy. I'm going to expand that next year and drop Chrysalis Purple and Spanish Roja. I'd like to get a good early garlic to spread the harvest out more,

Has anyone had any luck growing out the corms from Elephant Garlic? I planted thousands and only had a hundred or so form rounds. I'm pretty sure it was the hot dry that killed them, the ones that lived came up from 3 to 5 inches deep. I think they;re the ones that I missed and the tiller pushed down. I was planting too shallow. I'm going to try planting them deep this year, and put some in a tray with a SIP to keep them moist. I think you get bigger bulbs growing them from rounds but haven't been able to grow them consistent enough to check it.

I've been harvesting and eating scapes in everything, especially eggs. This is only my second year growing garlic, last year I harvested too late and probably should have hung them because some rotted. We had garlic up until about a month ago. I still need to learn the best harvest time. Now, we have just had huge rains., and after reading all of the comments here, I think I may be a bit late again. I'm going out to check them. I have 16 garlic varieties, mostly hardneck, also elephant garlic, grey shallots, potato and walking onions, and a couple red shallots from the grocery store.

Mike in Hanover, VA

16, I'm impressed. I can't taste the difference once they're cooked and I don't eat enough fresh to justify maintaining so many. Chesnok Red for spicy fresh taste. If I have to peel it I reach for Georgian Chrystal, Elephant for roasting, and selling. German Hardy because it grows so well. Persian Star because it waits while I'm harvesting the others. Like I said, I'd like an early one to spread the season more, but otherwise it's just a pain keeping track of so many.

The creoles are early.  I plant mine deep.  So far they aren't rotting but 4 days of rain helped the weeds more than my garlic.  I'm spending hours this weekend getting the weeds out.

@greysmith....Do you leave the tops and roots on when drying in the bread trays?  I always wait and cut mine once they're dry, but it would be nice to trim at harvest and be done with it.

I gave a big bag of garlic to a friend of a friend to sell at one of our farmers markets 2 years ago.  He sold them all quick and said he would buy all I had any time.  I wish I had space like you have to plant even a couple thousand cloves as I enjoy growing it.  I really got hooked after reading Herrick Kimball's blog on garlic (I even built one of his chicken feather pluckers for my brother; no advertising intended).

I hope you have a good harvest of garlic and honey!

i used to Leave the roots and stems on to dry them but that takes a lot of room, now I take the roots and stem off rough with utility scissors. I leave the stem up to the first leaf so I have a place to start peeling and when they've gotten pretty dry I peels off some wrapper to clean them up (that is a lot easier when they are dryer) and then trim the stem down, and cut the root end smooth with a sharp knife. You can schedule it for when you have time that way. You've got to harvest them when they're ready and if you have a lot coming in you don't have much time for cleaning then.

BTW. You want to quick dry them to about 75% of their fresh weight to keep them from rotting or molding. I weigh out a pound when they're fresh picked and put them in a net bag then toss them back in the tray with the others. When that bag gets down to 3/4s lb. I can take them all off the trays and store them in net bags, or sell them, or whatever, and they'll keep.

I pulled up a Tuscan Purple this weekend, to both check the number of layers on the bulb and, well, because I really wanted to eat fresh garlic. It was great! It had a lot of wrappers - 3 or 4 - and it tasted great. Here in my part of NJ, we may get more thunderstorms this week. And even though the Xian and Tuscan are holding some green, I'm going to pull them up. The German Xtra Hardy and Romanian Red are still very green and robust. Leaving them in.

I'm disappointed about the Roja - this is the second time I planted it over the past several years and it always duds out in my garden. Not sure why. I like the flavor, but it never produces large bulbs like many of my other garlics have done. In total, I like to harvest about 240 bulbs for the year, but this year I'm getting about 160-170 as a result of the Inchelium and Roja losses. Garlic goes fast when I'm canning salsa, hot sauce, etc. Maybe I need to tear up some more lawn and build a new bed as insurance? :)

@Tim - I also read there is no difference in the amount of allicin in large and small bulbs, but I have read the smaller ones may be more flavorful. I can't remember the reason off the top of my head, but since I'm such a garlic fiend, I go for big, small, and in between.

I'm dropping Roja. It hasn't shown me a thing. Chesnok Red is a nice spicy garlic, and I'm going to stick with that. I got a variety pack from Seed Savers 4-5 years ago. 2 bulbs each of 5 varieties. It was sorry! Tiny bulbs. one of the Broadleaf Czech was a husk. It had rotted and dried and they sent it anyway. That was almost my last order from them, They screwed the next one up too and I haven't been back. But, I've been growing them out, only planting the best cloves from the best bulbs, and I've worked them up to some pretty good garlic. Do you have any early  (or exceptional) varieties you'd like to swap?

Geez, you guys are garlic fiends. I have to say I feel like a garlic simpleton on this thread. 

I got the Duganski hardneck/Susanville softneck combo from Territorial Seed years ago and been pleased with them. I really like the big cloves from Duganski and they keep well for me in our dry Colorado air. I only plant 30-40 cloves each fall and I have plenty.

Good advice on removing foliage and weighing out a point to determine dryness greysmith. I think drying with the foliage on may have encouraged some rotting last year. I'm removing the foliage this year.

I do have a lot of varieties to keep track of, and I will no doubt eliminate low performers. Last year I got half of my cloves planted, but then it got so wet, I couldn't plant the rest for another month. This year, many are smaller than I would have hoped. Another problem is I didn't separate my large cloves bulbs for planting, and many got eaten. Another possible contributer to small bulbs might be that I did not fertilize them. They looked good up until the end so I thought they would be o.k.. Now, I see I have some rot, as the leaves started yellowing unevenly with some brown tips. I harvested a lot yesterday and the outer skins are showing some rot.

Mike in Hanover, VA