Garlic harvest came early this year and Kim finished it off Saturday morning.
When is garlic reday to harvest? In the Kingston Ontario region, normally around the end of July. The leaves will start to die off and turn brown. This years weather meant they were ready a couple of weeks early.
Take a pitchfork and dig from a few inches away and loosen the soil. Pull out the garlic by the stem and brush off any excess dirt tangled up in the roots.
Gather all of the similar plants together with their namestake, so as to not get them mixed up. We grow over 40 types and this is a very important step in seed saving… good record keeping!
We keep track of the harvest in a logbook.
We hang them up to dry upside down in a drying rack outdoors in a leanto. Each type is grouped together and labelled and a divider is placed between each type.
In past years we would tie them up with string, in the house, in the garage, and as each year the number of bulbs grew (over 400 now) we searched for more efficient ways to manage the process.
the leanto is open to the air, the garlic is shaded from the sun with row cover on the transparent bits of poly roof. We’ll keep it in there for about 4 weeks.
When dry/cured, we’ll inspect them for leek moth damage and save the best for seed for planting in the fall. The rest we store in our cold room (not very cold in the summer! It’s just an insulated 4’x8’x7′ box in the garage), eating those along the way.