Alright, this is John Kohler with growingyourgreens.com.
Today we have another exciting episode for ya coming at you from my backyard garden.
Beautiful June day, later in the afternoon.
I was out gardening earlier planting a whole bunch of new peppers out for the summer season.
But this episode what we’re gonna do is actually, we’re gonna share with you guys
when to harvest your garlic, right?
Right here what we have behind me is a whole bed of garlic, and this was not the primary
crop that actually I grew in this bed.
The garlic was kind of like an afterthought or what I like to do in many cases intercropping.
I like to plant, you know, multiple different items in the same raised bed so I can actually
have, you know, produce twice as much food at the same time.
So earlier in the year this bed was actually planted out with standard spinach transplants,
probably around like end of October beginning of November.
And when I planted those guys at the same time I planted some garlic cloves, some hardneck
garlic actually, some organic hardneck garlic actually, got up when I was on a trip to Utah
last year.
And so I planted those in at the same time.
You know, I got many harvests of spinach during the season.
Finally the spinach went to flower and seed, it got cut out and removed so it’s actually
all gone now.
But I did leave the garlic in place because the garlic was not yet ready to be harvested.
That was probably maybe like a month or so ago.
Now the garlic is nice and large, and it’s just about ready to be harvested.
I could let it go a little bit longer but I thought I’d make a video for you guys
and share with you guys when to harvest your garlic and why I’m harvesting it now.
So this was planted end of October beginning of November.
It’s now beginning of June and we’re ready to harvest.
So it’s basically the garlic from the clove to the full bulb that we’ll be pulling out
in a second, it has been a total of seven months.
So here’s the best way to know when to harvest your garlic, alright?
So, you want to look actually at the leaves on the plant.
So these are the little long blades – this just fell off – and you know we have green
blades and we have some brown blades.
And each one of these blades actually correspond with on that bulb that you’re familiar with
as paper covering, right?
As you can see I’m peeling it off.
So as the leaves turn brown on the bottom leaves that’s part of this paper covering
and if your leaves turn brown that means the covering underneath the ground is actually
kind of getting dissolved and kind of composting and breaking down.
And if you let too many of your leaves on the garlic go brown then basically all the
paper covering or the literally natural wrapping of your garlic cloves will be disintegrated,
your cloves will be, you know, exposed to the soil, the bacteria, the worms, everything
under the ground, and they can break down and not store as well.
So for this reason you want to make sure that you don’t have too many brown leaves on
your garlic like if all the leaves in your garlic are brown, that means that underneath
the ground all that paper covering is gone which is definitely not a good thing.
So depending on who you ask you may want to have like, you know, three or four leaves
on the bottom brown.
But it’s basically a percentage of how many leaves you have total, so for example on this
plant right here I got, let’s see one, two, three, four leaves that have already turned
brown.
And then I have five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, maybe twelve.
So I have twelve leaves total, five of which have turned brown.
So that’s you know not quite at half, so if you have half of the leaves already turned
brown it’s definitely time to harvest but generally what you want to do is when about
one third of the leaves turn brown, that’s a fairly good indicator that it is time to
harvest.
In general also you want to check with at what time in your area do people generally
harvest their garlic This may have to be offset depending if you planted your garden on time
or a little bit late.
I usually tend to run a little bit late in planting things because I’m usually so busy
so a lot of the garlic in the area has already been harvested, you know, even as early as
late April or May and here I am in June just about harvesting mine.
I always want to leave my garlic kind of like in as long as possible so that they can bulb
up and those cloves get nice and big.
The other thing is I grew hardneck garlic as I mentioned, and the hardneck if you guys
see have these garlic scapes.
They kinda look like little birds, you know, on the top.
And the softneck which I have in another raised bed is not actually ready to be harvested
yet.
This hardneck is.
But these scapes, once it starts to form the scapes, you know, a lot of the energy that
goes to produce the bulb is probably going to go be going up into the scapes, so I like
to harvest my garlic before the scapes are fully mature and start getting big.
Another thing I’ll do like in this case I just basically cut off the flowering scape
and actually, yeah, I ate it for dinner a couple nights ago.
So I guess with that let’s go ahead and pull up one of these guys.
Number one rule when harvesting garlic, don’t just take the garlic “okay John I’m super
strong I’m gonna pull it up.”
If you just try to pull it up straight upright you’re probably going to damage your garlic,
right?
The stem is going to break before the garlic is unearthed.
So for that reason people recommend using a fork and all this kind of stuff.
You know I’m just growing garlic in this four foot circular bed.
This four foot circular bed has about three dozen garlic plants in there.
It had a lot of spinach in there before.
But I’m just going to go ahead and dig it up with my hand.
The best way I want to try to minimally disturb the soil.
So what I do is I take my finger and shove it right down near the stem and I basically
just peel-- peel the soil back just a little bit to expose it from the top.
And just run my finger around it right and then I just basically carefull Wow these roots
are stuck in there pretty good.
Get my finger around it and try to get it underneath and rip it up a little bit.
Alright so there we go.
There’s my first harvested garlic.
So, so to me you guys can see here is like one leaf it’s been already turned brown.
Two leaves.
Maybe two and three leaves.
This guy still looks a little bit young.
I think I’m going to go ahead and leave the rest of this bed in for a little bit longer.
For these guys to develop a little bit larger.
So yeah, we’re going to come back out here in maybe a couple more weeks after these guys
grow a bit more.
And that’s how it goes sometimes, you know, when you’re gonna harvest.
You can like decide to—okay I’m gonna harvest all these now even though they’re
a little bit small.
And you can surely do that but you know in this case we’re gonna maybe wait a little
longer on some of these other guys and maybe I’ll be having some garlic fettuccini for
dinner.
Alright so I want to give you guys an update on the garlic harvest.
It’s been probably about another one and a half weeks since I made the original part
of this video.
And as you guys can see my garlic is still growing.
These flowering tops are now opening.
You know what I like to do is actually just to chop of all these flowers and just eat
them because actually they’re quite tasty.
They have a nice garlic you know essence plus some of the nutrients from the garlic.
But now today I’m really gonna harvest them because literally half the leaves have turned
brown.
Another tip I wanted to give you guys it’s best to harvest when the soil is dry like
it is right now.
And then you know some people like to like put in a shovel and dig up garlic.
I don’t like to damage any garlic with any kind of implements or tools I just like to
use my hands.
I mean, our hands are meant for digging.
Maybe not as good as a dog but.
I like to use my hands also this way I minimally disturb the soil.
So what I carefully do is I go around with my finger and I just kind of remove the dirt
that’s right around the stalk coming out of the ground.
And I can reveal the little garlic bulb here inside.
And then I keep scooping the soil the way with my finger all the way around until I
get underneath it.
And try to like loosen up some of the roots.
It’s going to take a little bit of time to do this and one of the things you don’t
want to do in harvesting garlic is just pull up by the stem and yank it because if you
do that you’re probably going to break the stem which is definitely not a good thing.
So once I got it kind of up you know I get my kind of fingers two fingers underneath
there, wiggle it up, as you guys can see harvested some garlic.
So what I want to do next for you guys is actually go ahead and harvest all this garlic
and then I’m going to show you guys how to actually cure your garlic harvest.
This is a very important step to ensure your garlic’s gonna last for literally six months
to a year.
So now I just got done harvesting thirty six heads of garlic from my four foot round raised
bed, and aside from knowing actually when to harvest your garlic probably one of the
most important steps is to cure your garlic properly.
So what we’re going to do next for you guys is actually show you guys how I’m gonna
cure this stuff and basically we’re going to go into my greenhouse that actually has
kind of a roof over it so it’s not direct sun it’s kind of like a more shaded location
that gets some indirect sunlight.
Whether you have a greenhouse that’s not in full direct sunlight or even something
like your garage that would be an excellent place to cure your garlic so let’s head
inside and I’ll show you guys how easy it is.
So now I’m in one of my greenhouses and what I’ve done is basically by the rafters
or what holds up the whole greenhouse along the top I basically tied up these strings
so they’re just kind of hanging down I got like four of them.
And what we’re going to do is we’re going to take maybe like ten heads.
Two, three, four—whoops—five, six, seven, nine, ten.
So I’m just basically gonna tie these on up now the other thing I want to let you guys
know is that I’m not washing these cloves, right?
I don’t want to introduce any excess moisture than I need to into these cloves before drying.
The other thing is you know I harvested this on a dry day before my watering system turned
on so they’re actually already pretty dry.
So now I’m going to show you guys actually how to hang up the garlic super simple, super
easy, doesn’t take rocket science.
So now the first thing I want to mention to you guys though is I’ve cut off all the
scapes.
I am growing a hardneck.
I cut off all the scapes, I put them in some water inside the kitchen I’m just basically
going to cut off and eat all the flowers inside salads or soups.
They’re quite delicious.
The other thing I want to let you guys know is you know most people grow garlic just for
the cloves and the bulbs, right?
There’s more to the garlic plant than just the cloves or bulbs, and I think it’s quite
sad that people are fixated on the garlic cloves, right?
You could actually eat the whole plant so you know before you guys dry these you know
pick off some nice leaves right here, right?
You could just chop these up finely add them to salads, add them to soups, add them to
your different recipes, use them just like you would chives.
Now I understand this right.
These guys are little bit strong the garlic greens can be a bit strong but if you like
garlic, you’re Italian, more power to ya, alright?
The other thing and you could eat these leaves the whole season.
Now I wouldn’t go around and harvest a ton of the leaves of the garlic during the season.
I would go maybe around each plant and harvest like one leaf off each plant, one leaf the
plant’s not gonna miss.
But if you over-harvest the leaves of course your bulbs are not gonna forma as big.
The thing though l want to let you guys know about is that these stalks here, you know,
that are pretty thick, even though these are thick and fibrous, right?
They’re still edible you can still use them and eat them and actually they’ve a lot
of juice in there.
If I just take this in my mouth and chew.
Alright.
I definitely got some garlic breath and that’s gonna ward off the vampires.
So yeah you can juice these stalks you can also cut them up.
I would dice them into small pieces add them to soups or things for flavoring.
They are a little bit fibrous so you want them to break down if you are gonna eat them.
But they have a lot of good flavor in them so don’t forget about them and you can actually
cut some of these guys before drying them and actually have them for your benefit and
use them.
I’ll probably cut off a few of these and actually, you know, run it through my juicer
and get kind of a nice garlic flavor in some of my juices.
So yeah be aware of that cause not many people teach you about that part of this.
So anyways let’s go ahead and hang up this garlic.
Not super rocket science.
We’re just gonna go ahead and take it and you know turn this around up here.
Make sure you keep tension on your rope, super critical, super important.
And I’m just gonna go ahead and put it in here, and put in a fancy slipknot that I never
learned about because I was never in the Boy Scouts or nothing like that.
But let’s see if Boy Scout guy that wasn’t in the Boy Scouts could tie a knot that’s
gonna hold my garlic up.
Alright now I wouldn’t do this if I was like rock climbing.
But I think to hold some garlic up I think I’ll be find.
Alright so we got that garlic tied up there, now I just gotta do a bunch more bunches and
get them all hung then I’ll be back at you with my final thoughts and comments about
harvest using and eating the garlic.
Alright so as you guys can see I got all my garlic hanging here in my nice shaded greenhouse.
And the thing is how long do you let your garlic hang for?
That’s a good question.
Depends on where you live.
I mean, here probably a week and a half.
In 80 plus to 100 degree weather, you know, this stuff’s going to be dry and I live
in an arid climate.
If you live in Vermont or something it might take three weeks.
You know, it also depends on how much air circulation and the humidity level in the
air.
But basically you just wanna check for and make sure that all the roots are all fully
dried out, they’re looking pretty good and then at that point you can take them all out
and you know cut off some of the greenery on the top, compost that, and then you gotta
store your garlic inside.
And you know I have my garlic store probably at six to nine months depending on the variety.
So you know just in by growing enough garlic in one or two raised beds I have enough garlic
to meet my dietary requirements for the entire year.
And so that I don’t have to buy any garlic.
And you know life is not an all or nothing game.
I would encourage you guys to grow as much food as you possibly can and to display certain
items you know garlic is something really easy to grow and as I’ve mentioned before
you know.
My intention with the raised bed that I grew in wasn’t to grow garlic.
My intention was to grow spinach.
But I put garlic in between the spinach plants to get a secondary crop also because the garlic
helps repel some of the pests that might normally go on the spinach due to the you know the
high garlic smell and the essential oils in there.
And so I always wanna encourage you guys to do good better best.
Grow some garlic, you could even grow garlic inside a container than might not ever make
nice bulbs but hey you’ll always have the greens to eat so you can get that garlic flavors
into.
Now the last thing I wanna say is I do not wanna recommend or encourage you guys purchasing
conventional garlic to grow your garlic from in your garden.
And the reason is why?
Most of the garlic that’s sold in the stores that’s conventional but is not organic is
imported from China.
That’s part of the majority of it these days unless you’re lucky enough to live
in California, then you might get California garlic.
But even in California I’ve seen lots of places sell the cheap low quality Chinese
garlic.
We don’t know if that’s irradiated, we don’t know what kind of treatments, chemicals
they’re doing to it.
So I’d encourage you guys to start off with some cloves from a good local source.
You know, visit your local farmer’s market and buy some garlic from a good local farmer.
Also when you do that you’re gonna have some varieties that perform well in your specific
climate zone.
I know the red inchelium garlic is a variety that does really good here in the climate
zone that I’m at.
Oh and then if you don’t have a farmer’s market to go to hey buy some organic garlic.
You know, by law that’s stuff is not supposed to be irradiated and it’s probably going
to be pretty good stuff although sometimes it’s from California, sometimes it can be
imported, but I haven’t seen imported organic Chinese garlic.
I’ve seen it maybe from like Peru and some other places in South America.
So yeah, garlic is a fun and rewarding crop also the health benefits of garlic are out
of this world.
They contain aliinase that’s, you know, anti-cancer, gonna help you fight disease.
And the only thing it’s gonna do is it might prevent your lovers from wanting to kiss ya,
unless they’re Italian too.
Alright, so if you guys enjoyed this episode learning how to harvest garlic, how to cure
your garlic, all that stuff, hey please be sure to give me a thumbs up, let me know and
that’ll encourage me to make more videos on when I harvest all the different foods
that I’m growing here in my garden.
Also be sure to share this video with somebody else who’s looking into learning how to
harvest the garlic and cure the garlic and also be sure to click that subscribe button
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So with that my name is John Kohler with growingyourgreens.com.
We’ll see you next time and until then remember, keep on growing.