Garlic Harvest

This is my first year growing a large crop of garlic. In the past I have planted a few grocery store bulbs here and there that resulted in some small bulbs. Last fall I dedicated an entire 4x4 Square Foot Garden to Romanian Red and Purple Glazer garlic.

I was unsure when to harvest. I have done my research, but there are conflicting views. Some say when leaves begin to yellow, or when 1-2 leaves turn brown, or even when the tops fall over. The longer you allow the garlic to grow, the larger the bulb. If you harvest too late, the bulb may begin to split apart into individual cloves.

Fellow garden bloggers close to my growing area began posting their garlic harvests a week ago. So I decided to dig one up and see what was happening:

It was beautiful and looked ready to me. I used this bulb to make pesto, it was good sized and the cloves were filled out. The garlic was ready for harvest.

While pulling the garlic I noticed most bulbs were quite large, only a few here or there were a little smaller. I tied them in bunches and hung them in the shed to cure:

Once the bulbs are cured, they will be trimmed and stored in mesh bags. The largest bulbs will be planted in the fall for next years crop.

I am delighted at the success of this garlic crop. I have no idea how much garlic we can consume in year, but I suspect I will be more generous with adding garlic to my cooking.

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Harvest Monday: August 9, 2010

Each Monday, Daphne’s Dandelions hosts “Harvest Monday” where everyone can share links to their harvest for the week. It’s fun to see what everyone is harvesting from his or her gardens in different areas.

The most exciting harvest this week are the tomatoes. After losing all my tomato plants to late blight last year, I may have overcompensated a bit this year in the amount of plants in the garden. Personally, I don’t like tomatoes and usually plant mostly paste varieties for making sauce and salsa. Roma and San-Marzano paste tomatoes are the varieties I am growing this year:

K loves fresh tomatoes and I wanted to plant a couple eating tomatoes for him. I had both Early Girl and Bush Boy seeds on hand. More seeds germinated than I planned and I found room in the garden for all the healthy seedlings. Seriously, is it possible to have too many tomatoes?

I made a batch of salsa with Cilantro, Onions, Peppers, and Tomatoes from the garden. I had to purchase a few Jalapeno and Bell Peppers as mine are just beginning to fruit. The picture below shows some tomatoes and the first Cayenne, Anaheim and Bell Pepper harvest of the year:

The windowsill is in constant rotation. The ripe tomatoes are washed and frozen as the new harvest is added to the windowsill:

Two gallon sized freezer bags have been filled and frozen for later processing into sauce:

Other harvest this week included more Fastbreak Melons:

Dark Red Norland Potatoes (3.375 pounds) and another Fastbreak Melon:

Some small carrots and some onions:

Three bunches of celery were harvested, sliced, and frozen for later use in soups and stuffings:

There are still a lot of cucumbers coming off the vines. I have made a couple batches of pickles and will use some for a batch of sweet relish. The rest will be given away:

This is the best year we have ever had for Blueberries. Every day we pick a bowl full and have frozen some for use future baked goods:

 This weekend, the cured garlic was also trimmed and cleaned up:

The bulbs on the left are Romanian Red which will make a return appearance in the Garden Spot. On the right are Purple Glazer. The bulbs are small and fragile. I want to try another variety.

Just a reminder, if you are planning on growing garlic, now is the time to get your order in. I purchased my garlic seed bulbs from wegrowgarlic.com last year. I noticed this year they are already sold out of many varieties.

Be sure to visit Daphne’s Dandelions to see what others are harvesting this week.

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