Harvesting & Drying Garlic

When the leaves on your garlic plants start dying back, you know it is time to harvest them.  I've read several different articles and one said to wait until you have 6 green leaves left on your garlic until you harvest.  After reading that, I stopped harvesting when I had dug up 32 plants and decided to wait a little while longer.  You don't want to wait until the plant has completely died back as the garlic is then more prone to rot since the protective 'wrapper' is no longer there.

It seems we always have problems with garlic rotting because at harvest time, it is always raining and very humid.  I've lost the last two crops because of this.  I learned a technique that will hopefully help and I'll show you the process.  I'm not guaranteeing success, but we're going to give it a try.  Here is a close up of some of the garlic ready for harvest.


Garlic plant

Here is the second row of garlic.  I'm going to leave these in the ground for a few weeks longer if it stops raining.  I want to be sure that they are ready.  

The second row of garlic

Here are the first several garlic that I dug up and I'm letting them dry in the sun for an afternoon.  You don't want to leave them in the sun long, though.  They'll sunburn.  It is better to hang them in a dry place out of the sun to dry OR to use the process I'm going to illustrate.


Fresh dug garlic

You want to dig the garlic versus pulling them out of the ground.  Since we're at war with bland, un-flavorful food and garlic is a key weapon in our arsenal, I'm going to use a WWII entrenching shovel to dig up the garlic.  Charge!


Can you dig it?

Simply insert the shovel about 3 inches from the base and pry upward and this will loosen the soil so that you can pull it up and shake the dirt off.


Loosening the soil

Here is the first garlic of the season.  Looks pretty good. 

Garlic

I take some clippers and clip the leaves off, leaving about 4 inches of the stem attached to the bulb/cloves.  This makes the garlic easier to dry/cure.  Some people (in drier and less humid climates) leave the leaves on and actually braid them together to dry.  That would be cool to try.


Clipping the leaves off of the harvested garlic

Here is what the garlic looks like once the tops are cut off.

I save all the tops to add to the compost pile.  I tried to feed one to the cows, but they weren't too interested.  Probably a good thing.  While I like garlic, I'm not so sure garlic-flavored milk would be good.


Garlic leaves for the compost pile

I've found that due to our high humidity, it is imperative that you use a fan to keep air moving across the garlic heads to ensure they are dried properly and less susceptible to rot.  I was going to build a box with a hardware cloth bottom to blow through.  I would build it so that it matched the dimensions of my box fan.  As I began to think about it, I decided it would be easier to just use the frame of an old junk garden wagon that I was saving.  Once the garlic heads are all cured, this old wagon frame will be filled with hay and be placed in the barn for a nesting box for our laying hens.  Once implements and other things around the place end their normal useful lives, I like to try and find another use for them.

I have the wagon body propped up on two rain buckets with the box fan on its side blowing air upward through the expanded metal wagon frame.  It makes a perfect Garlic curing/dryer.  I've set this contraption up in the garage and the garage smells very 'garlicky' right now.


Sanford & Son Salvage Company Garlic Dryer.

Here is a top down view of the garlic spread out on the 'dryer'.  If you look closely, you can see the fan body below.  I think this afternoon, I'm going to enhance the dryer by lifting the fan higher so that it almost touches the bottom of the wagon.


Garlic drying on the rack

I'll let them dry until the wrapper of the garlic is dry and crinkly like that you find in the produce section of the grocery store.

I hope the fan enables me to successfully grow, cure, and store garlic.  We love the taste of garlic!