The bottom few leaves of our garlic turned yellow a couple of weeks ago, so we headed down the field with a wheelbarrow and pitch fork to harvest garlic for the first time, and to dish out the Home Farm 2020 Garlic Awards.
Couldn’t agree more. I suspect we only have a six month supply because we eat a lot of garlic, but we’ll try and grow a year’s supply next year now that we know how to do it.
Thanks for the feedback and comment Kutukamus. We’re learning a lot along the way. Garlic, onions and potatoes can be stored for a year, if they are dried, cured and stored properly.
It probably hasn’t been cured properly. We are still using our own garlic that we harvested last year in October. None have rotted, and all the heads and cloves are firm. We keep them stored in a cool place inside a paper bag where it’s dark.
Some markets sell ‘fresh’ garlic, which is delicious but will have a short shelf life. Not sure if that’s perhaps what you purchased.
We take 25% of the harvest and put the cloves back in the ground late in the fall. The gives us about the same harvest a year later. To increase our harvest we do with a bit less for eating and put more in the ground. That’s the real beauty of gardening.
[…] still have bags and bags of potatoes left, a few pumpkins and the garlic reserves are still going strong. This year, we want to repeat our garlic and potato haul, and we […]
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Ralph Brunjes
2 years ago
It may seem a daft thing to say ,but the garden fork that you are useing is it an edging or a lady’s fork?
The reason that I am asking is it seems that with your height you are bending too much and could do with a longer handle.
Just a thought to save your back.
I have a lady’s fork for certain things but being 6′ 2″ myself I have learnt the hard way.
A very perceptive observation Ralph. The garden fork I was using belonged to my wife’s late grandfather. He was a short, stocky Yorkshireman, and for him this would have been a good sized fork. The reason I used this fork is because I wanted a compact, narrow tool to unearth the garlic and not damage surrounding heads of garlic. Like you, I’m quite tall at 6’1″, and have other larger and longer forks.
You can never have too much garlic and it keeps all year!
Couldn’t agree more. I suspect we only have a six month supply because we eat a lot of garlic, but we’ll try and grow a year’s supply next year now that we know how to do it.
A year supply? Really, we can keep/store garlic that long? (Sorry, I know nothing about plants)
Sounds great, nevertheless. Cheers!
Thanks for the feedback and comment Kutukamus. We’re learning a lot along the way. Garlic, onions and potatoes can be stored for a year, if they are dried, cured and stored properly.
Then how come the garlic I bring home from the market is soft and starts to sprout after a couple weeks? I find it gets old rather quickly.
It probably hasn’t been cured properly. We are still using our own garlic that we harvested last year in October. None have rotted, and all the heads and cloves are firm. We keep them stored in a cool place inside a paper bag where it’s dark.
Some markets sell ‘fresh’ garlic, which is delicious but will have a short shelf life. Not sure if that’s perhaps what you purchased.
We take 25% of the harvest and put the cloves back in the ground late in the fall. The gives us about the same harvest a year later. To increase our harvest we do with a bit less for eating and put more in the ground. That’s the real beauty of gardening.
That’s a great tip Jasper. Thank you.
I think we’ll follow your 25% advice, and this way we won’t have to buy bulbs again either. Real sustainability.
That’s a good harvest, I must try harder 🙂
[…] still have bags and bags of potatoes left, a few pumpkins and the garlic reserves are still going strong. This year, we want to repeat our garlic and potato haul, and we […]
It may seem a daft thing to say ,but the garden fork that you are useing is it an edging or a lady’s fork?
The reason that I am asking is it seems that with your height you are bending too much and could do with a longer handle.
Just a thought to save your back.
I have a lady’s fork for certain things but being 6′ 2″ myself I have learnt the hard way.
A very perceptive observation Ralph. The garden fork I was using belonged to my wife’s late grandfather. He was a short, stocky Yorkshireman, and for him this would have been a good sized fork. The reason I used this fork is because I wanted a compact, narrow tool to unearth the garlic and not damage surrounding heads of garlic. Like you, I’m quite tall at 6’1″, and have other larger and longer forks.
They are also good if recently like me most of the discs in my back are shot plus my MS , but I now use raised beds because of this.
A great point. Raised beds are so much more comfortable to work on.