The Garlic Harvest

[wayneyquo]

Just harvested some of my garlic crop and I'm really pleased with it. They were all planted at the very end of Sept and I put in 4 varieties. I sourced them from the Isle of Wight.
Iberian Wight, Early Purple Wight, Solent Wight & Albigensian Wight.
The Solent wight is still in the ground as I pulled a couple of test bulbs up and they seem a little small to me but everything else is up and drying.. Every clove from each bulb has produced a bulb so to me it was money well spent paying a little extra for their garlic.

Just thought that I'd let you know as this gorgeous weather is great for drying them out lol.

[Kaiya]

You and me both! I just pulled my harvest up - Solent Wight, Purple Wight and Elephant Garlic, all also from the Isle of Wight (went to the Garlic Farm last Sept). I planted them in Oct or so and have literally neglected them since - I love overwintering alliums, they are so kind to me. My Solent Wights were small too but I pulled them anyway as the leaves were properly yellowing. The Purple Wights (an earlier variety?) were much better sized and of course the Elephants were huge. I was a bit naughty and bought their eating garlic rather than seed garlic, as it is cheaper, but only seemed to have one diseased SW bulb (fluffy and white) which was on the edge of the plot so hopefully the rest are clean.

They are now all drying with the overwintering onions (which didn't appreciate being neglected quite as much, but still grew) on racks made from shelves of a dismantled blowaway. Happy days.

[Alison]

Mine's pathetic this year but as I had a fab crop last year I've still got loads as lazy garlic from last year so I should still be OK. Congrats on your good crops.

[wayneyquo]

Thank you. Gonna save the best bulb from each variety and off we go again lol.

Might try planting some in October as normal but in 3" pots and leave in a cold greenhouse until February then plant them out once spouted. This should give me time to get the new planting bed ready. They say that this is a good way of doing it, but I've not tried it before.
Has anyone had any success with this method?

[wayneyquo]

Well done. Some won't have as much success so it's nice to be rewarded this time around.

[bario1]

I pulled up one of mine (solent wight) and its pathetic, hardly anything there at all - will the bulbs grow any more now the foliage is dying back, or is that it?

[Alison]

No, that's it when the foilage dies down, sorry to bring bad news

[Two_Sheds]

I got a good crop this year too

I plant ordinary supermarket garlic. It definitely needs a good rich soil ~ it (and onions) usually are poor in my sandy soil, but this year I grew them in garden compost and they actually look like shop garlic

[Creemteez]

I pulled and experimental bulb last month and it was looking very promising. On the subject of Supermarket bulbs, my new pet peeve is Tezzie's latest marketing ploy "Cooks Garlic". I thought ALL garlic is for cooks...or Vampires - in which case they should SAY it's Vampire Garlic.

[Alison]

I got annoyed in one of the posher supermarkets once (possibly Waitrose) that they were selling fruit "for cooking" that was perhaps not as visually perfect but would have taste fine. Idiots were still buying the other, more expensive stuff as presumably they didn't know any better.

[Pies]

How come you lot have harvested your garlic,I planted mine last October and live in the south east yet mines still growing not even started to die back yet

[wayneyquo]

It seems that Solent Wight is having a bad year by the sounds of it. The bulb I got from the Isle of Wight had 17 gloves in it. All 17 have grown beautifully but have not produced large bulbs. No way will there be 17 cloves inside these bulbs unless there are of minuscule proportions lol. I've pulled 3 but I'm hoping that if I leave the rest until the end of July that the bulbs may just swell a little more. I'm hoping to get 1 bulb that I can use for next years crop lol.

[wayneyquo]

Dunno? I planted mine at the end of September as I couldn't wait. I made a mix of Peat, multi purpose compost,Horse manure,Vermicompost or (Worm compost) & mole soil. Seems to have done the trick for me although time consuming.

[bearded bloke]

Mine are not dying back yet either (planted on shortest day) but no big surprise as we are about 4-6 weeks behind this year due to the cold (& very long) spring,so late this month or early next I reckon.

[Barking Postlethwaite]

I'm mightily impressed with my garlic (type unknown; lifted last week), grown from a couple of bulbs left over from last summer's camping holiday in Alsace. I certainly wouldn't pay for a fancy named variety now; these seem to work just fine.