How to tell when Garlic is ready to harvest?
young codger
Posts: 522
in Fruit & veg
I planted the cloves last October, so they have been growing for about 10 months.. The green stalks/stems have now developed what look like swells or buds a few inches from the end of the stalks. I am guessing that these are flower buds, but as they are not on the very end of the stalks I can not be sure. Is this stage the time to harvest, and if not, how much longer do I need to wait?
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I would stop buying garlic and when you need some dig up a plant. You will soon see if the garlic is ready.
It sounds like you're growing a hardneck variety and they have put up what are called 'scapes' which are the flower buds, you can cut these off and use them in cooking
when the tops fall over
I don't have the answers, but I can compare mine to yours, it may help, or not I know know.
I put my garlic in about that time too, last year. Mines just regular garlic, it came from the supermarket and began sprouted in the kitchen, so I buried it~
The stems came up around February, and have been quite tall since late March. Right now, the bulbs are about the size of a ping-pong ball, they're white and purple-ish and haven't formed the outer skin, but there are individual cloves. I only know this because I carefully pull the soil out the way to see them now and then.
I had been told, I could be harvesting them as early as May, in May there were TINY.. I've since been told they're usually ready around July/august. -- I'm not holding my breath tho!
I had to dig up some last week as they had rust. Planted in October I think and the bulbs were also about ping-pong ball sized. I guess they're day-length-dependent like onions are so might be properly ready soon?
There was another thread abou this a week or three ago.
Yep - that's the one, Edd. Someone added that it's shallots, not garlic, which are planted on the shortest day and harvested on the longest - but I have my doubts about the wisdom of that as well.
The second row have rust now so they'll have to come out too.
I harvested mine about a week ago, here is the vid of me harvesting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10F9DEItNiI
there is a link to the second part at the end, and the beginning.
Feel free to click like, comment or even subscribe for more of my gardening videos.
No fancy web videos here but this is what I pulled up last night: bit of a range in size and the onion is one seedling / bulb that spilt in two hence looking a bit on the small size.
The two small garlics were ones that had split off a larger bulb and haven't divide themselves. Still should be a nice addition to a meal sometime!
I also have another video of me harvesting my elephant garlic if you would like to check it out?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-16duf_wgHk