Between the rather mild winter and the last heat wave, our garlic was ready for harvest yesterday. Earliest it has ever been! I'm OK with that as we will now grow a crop of small turnips in the same bed and they'll have plenty of time to grow to full term.
You can see that the lower 3/4 of the plants have browned up in the following picture. The plants have shrunk by a foot and a half in size as they matured:
This is what I look for as to timing the harvest - only a few leaves still green right on top:
The bulbs were all well formed and we again realized a nice average size. Remember, these are all the product of last year's bulbil plantings - that experiment is paying off very well:
Sorted, graded and hung up to cure (the window behind them gets shuttered so they do not see much light):
After having a 4 foot wall of green screening the BarBee / sitting area, it sure looks barren with only the Bubil producers and a couple of late volunteers:
Last year's Bubil crop, next year's seed, is doing rather well:
And this year's Bulbil crop - seed for 2 years down the line, are forming up nicely as well:
We'll be harvesting those within a couple weeks I'd guess, which besides putting the garlic into the cold room after they cure, will be a wrap for this season's garlic efforts.
99 in hand again!
Cheers,
Nog