Sunday 22 July 2012

Galloping Garlic

So here it is - my first garlic harvest


I dug them up a week ago and stored them under cover to dry off. Today I cleaned up the bulbs.

King of the crop has to be the one "Elephant" garlic:


Some bulbs had started to split:


but most were well shaped. The sand I added to the planting holes was still in evidence. I will definitely be doing the same in future years.


All in all a good experience in a terrible year.


13 comments:

  1. Your garlic looks great! Congrats on a great 1st garlic harvest!

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    1. Thanks Robin - which variety do you grow? (BTW lovely carrots)

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  2. Ours are ready also. I was told the splitting might be from leaving them in the ground too long and that was what my garlic did last year; the cloves started to separate. This year, digging up earlier and my first two tests...they are big and perfect just like those you have there that are not separating. Beautiful harvest Mal.

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    1. Hard Neck, Soft Neck, Elephant, Porcelain... There's more to this than I realised!

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  3. Must pull the three elephany garlics planted on the plot!

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    1. Do you save your own cloves for replanting or buy in new stock, Sue?

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    2. So fat we are buying in new stock as we hadn't really settled on a variety to grow each year. We may replant cloves next year though.

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  4. I will be pulling my garlic very shortly too Mal. We still have a little bit left from last year but stocks are running low so I'm hoping for a good crop. Quite a lot of my bulbs split last year but they all tasted great no matter how they looked on the outside...wouldn't find them in a supermarket though!!

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    1. Yeah, growing your own does fill you with amazement at the produce from commercial growers (however grudging).

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  5. I love the pics, what was the theory with the sand?

    We took over a new plot this year & I wasn't sure what to do about the split garlic I'd found, so I just planted the individual cloves back in and now we have a whole bed of garlic come up - have found a recipe for a garlic pesto that I might give a go later on, but nice to see above that they could have been used!

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    1. The sand is to prevent rot setting in, and with all the rain we've had this year it turned out to be a good plan. Only one bulb just disappeared.

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