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This year's garlic harvest was absolutely our most successful. Like growing onions from seed, our initial attempts ended in varying degrees of disappointment. This post is meant to document what we did this time, so we can repeat – and hopefully, build on – our success.

Varieties
We ordered Russian Red and Georgian Crystal (both from The Maine Potato Lady). All of the Russian Red produced, with a number of them becoming doubles. Sadly, several of the Georgian Crystal cloves never broke ground and only a few produced large bulbs.

Planting
We planted on Halloween. (In the years that we planted earlier, the plants came up a week later. This isn't supposed to happen.) The cloves were planted 4" deep and spaced 6" apart. There were four rows, spaced 8" apart. Compost was added to the soil, but manure would also have been good.

Mulching
Last fall, we mulched the garlic with 3-4 inches of mulching hay from our local Agway. It worked very well as a thermal buffer over the winter and did not become matted or rotten in spring. (In previous years, we used about 6 inches of salt marsh hay.)

Feeding
We did not remove the mulch and side dress the rows with fertilizer in the early spring. However, reliable sources on garlic culture say that we should have.

Removing Scapes
The scapes appeared in mid-June. Once we noticed them curling upward, they were removed and enjoyed as a culinary treat. (Apparently, this is the one thing we've done correctly all along. Removal of the scape sends more energy to the bulb.)

Watering
The garlic bed was watered normally (with the rest of the garden) through the fall and spring. Then, we stopped watering 2 weeks after the scapes appeared to allow the bulbs to begin curing before harvest. (This was also done in the last few years.)

Harvesting
We harvested earlier this year, when only the 3 bottom leaves on the plants had turned brown. (When we allowed all the leaves to turn in previous years, the outer wrappers degraded.) After loosening the soil from below with a garden fork, each bulb was lifted out and gently brushed off. (We had made the mistake of rinsing in previous years.)

Storing Seed Bulbs
The best 6 bulbs of the crop were set aside for this fall's seed garlic. We will leave the plants inside (out of direct sun) for 2 weeks. Then we will lightly trim the stems and roots and continue storing them for replanting this fall.

 

It was a great day in the garden, and we had our first real harvest: radishes, baby lettuce & spinach, some oregano trimmed from a transplant, and a few stems of rhubarb. The playground was filled and we had lots of visitors. More photos from today in the gallery.

The last two beds to be "double-dug". After this morning, all of the main garden beds have been loosened and cleared of big rocks to a depth of about 18".

We spread half-made compost and bamboo trimmings 12" deep, which will decay and add to the organic content of the soil.

 

 

 

Yeah,it was work.

From Steven:

I want to thank everyone who showed up for Field Day; we had a very good turnout of Gardeners this year!

We also had a very good turnout of visitors, tons of children, so many that we ran out of carrots for them to pick! But there was still sage and parsley, lemon balm and fennel seed, edible nasturtiums, the not-ginger Jerusalem artichokes, the purple cauliflower to find, questions about tomatillos and sweet potatoes, and even one demonstration of compost extraction and mulching. And more I'm forgetting at the moment!

It was a great outreach event for us, attested to by the smiles of the many children.