How To Harvest and Cure Garlic For The Best Garlic Ever

Growing great garlic is dead simple! It's the harvesting and curing that can throw us for a loop. 

Start with great soil and healthy bulbs, lots of sun, a bit of water, and you will have really great garlic... but when to harvest can be a bit tricky. Too early and it has not grown to it's full potential, too late and they have split open, are full of soil, and won't cure.

Harvest - Garlic harvest can be anywhere between May and August depending on the weather, when the bulbs were planted, how much sun your bed gets, and the variety of garlic you're growing. 

The majority of varieties take 8 to 9 months to go from planting to harvesting. I plant mine up mid to late October and am lifting the hardnecks some time in the month of July. 

If you were to grow some of the early maturing types like artichoke (softneck) or Turban garlic, you'll find that they are ready 2 to 4 weeks earlier. 

Tip #1 - Your garlic will be ready to harvest 3 or 4 weeks after scapes have formed on your hardneck types. 

When your garlic forms scapes (the curlicues at the top) remove them to divert the energy back to the bulb for larger bulbs.  

If you remove the scapes when they are young and tender, they are easy to just snap off with your fingers. Go to the topmost leaf and bend the scape with your fingers, it will easily snap right off. However, if you miss that window and you scapes are not tough, you will need pruners to snip them off. 

Tender, young scapes are delicious to eat. We like them roasted on the bbq with a bit of evoo and salt or made into a pesto but there are so many ways to use them, they keep really well in the fridge for about a month, too.   

Tip #2 - Stop watering your garlic shortly after you harvest the scapes and the bottom leaves start to yellow.  

Do not water for the last 2 to 3 weeks before harvest. The bulbs will cure better if they are not bloated with moisture or covered in wet muck. 

It also becomes much harder to brush the soil off of the bulbs at harvest time if the soil is wet, making the bulb more prone to mould and rot. This is especially true if you have clay soil or heavy soil. 

Try not to worry if it rains after the scapes have been removed. It is out of your hands. Cross your fingers for dry and sunny weather while your garlic is curing. Please do not lift the garlic early just because it is raining as you just never know how many weeks of dry weather you will have after the rains go away. Leave them in the ground till they are fully ready.  

Tip #3 - Harvest when half the leaves have turned brown/yellow.

The leaves will turn brown one at a time, from the bottom up, will look like these two that are lying on the ground in this picture. When all of the leaves on the bottom half are brown and only the top 4 or 5 are still green, it is time to lift. When this leaf (that I am pointing to) turns brown, I will be harvesting this garlic. 

If you forgot about them and left them in the ground till all the leaves went brown, the bulb will have split open. This garlic is still edible but will not cure for storage, too much soil and bacteria will have entered the open bulb. Use these cloves up in your cooking, mince and freeze, or dehydrate into yummy garlic powder.

Garlic harvested too late will split it's 'wrappers'. 

I grow a bunch of different varieties of garlic, 14 different kinds this year. They all pretty much taste the same to me (I am apparently not much of a connoisseur;) but I find such joy in harvesting the different kinds and colours. 

Most of all though, I like that they all mature at different rates so I can stagger my harvest days. I used to kind of dread garlic clean up day. Cleaning up several hundred bulbs all at one go was a day or two of boring, repetitive, hot work, and painful for my arthritic fingers.  

I new do things a bit differently. Made the task easier and faster, fits into my days better so that I now enjoy the clean up. That tip is coming further down...   

Tip #4- Use a garden fork to gently loosen the soil around the bulb. 

Place the fork into the soil about 3 to 4 inches away from the stems to keep from piercing the lovely bulbs. If you jab them, they will not cure. Push down on the handle of the fork to gently loosen the bulbs from the soil. Gently pull up on the stalks and they should pop right out.  

Treat your bulbs with tender loving care; they bruise easily which shortens their storage life. Do not bash them on the ground to get the soil off of them ; ) 

Now this is where I veer off on my own trail, do something different from the masses ... 

The traditional way of curing garlic is to gently brush some of the soil off of the bulbs and shake it out of the roots and then set them out to cure. 

Lay the bulbs spread out on tables or hang them up to dry/cure for a minimum of 3 weeks. I usually cure mine at least 6 weeks so that they last in the pantry better. 

When the roots are dry and crispy and the leaves are papery dry, it is clean up day. 

Rub off the soil, chop off the stalk, trim off the roots, remove the top layer or 2 of the dry, papery skin from the neck to polish up the bulbs nicely.    

It is tougher than you think to peel off those layers when they are fully cured and the roots get tough, so... 

This is what I now do, is my personal tip to you for an easier and more successful crop.  

Tip #5 - Prune the roots off right away at harvest time, while they are still nice and soft. I use a pair of kitchen scissors. 

Conventional ways tell you to leave the roots on till your garlic has fully cured, they say that it helps to draw the moisture away from the bulb. If there is a benefit, it is very, very small and I did not notice any difference at all.    

Honestly, if you wait till the roots are dry, they are so hard to trim off. You need super sharp pruners or scissors. If you have arthritis in your hands, as I do, it becomes a very painful task after a while.   

Tip #6 -  Remove the topmost yellow leaf, maybe even the first green leaf layer from the bulb. Remember, each leaf on the stalk is a layer of skin on the bulb. 

Pull the leaf all the way down to peel it off the entire bulb for a nice clean bulb as seen in the picture above. This technique removes the soil, plus a layer of two of wrappers from the bulb for better curing. The more layers of wrapping you have on the bulbs, the longer it takes to cure as they hold in the moisture. I aim for 3 or 4 layers, never less than that!   

I found that in a humid summer, I used to lose a few bulbs to mould when I cured them in the traditional manner. If we had a humid summer, I lost more than just a few. Growing these beauties for 9 months and then losing them during curing is heartbreaking. 

Cleaning them up right away takes away those worries. I have had zero losses to mould so far with this method.

Also, as I have a mixed bag of garlic varieties, they all mature at different rates, so I am only cleaning up a dozen or two at any given time. If you have all the same variety, you can still stagger your harvest by cleaning up a few rows a day. This might not be an issue if you still have nimble fingers and time on your hands, but if like me, there are a million chores needing doing, taking them a bit at a time has made me love garlic harvest and clean up.   

Tip #7 - Leave those stalks and leaves on! Do not cut them off until the garlic has finished curing. 

If you cut the stems down too early, bacteria might set in. Leave them be, once the leaves are all dry, brown and papery, your garlic is cured and ready to go. 

 

Tip #8 - Place them to cure in a shaded, well-ventilated area. 

I have a lovely curing shed that I think was originally a carport for either a small tractor or a ride-on lawn mower. It is open on three sides for great air flow and shade from the sun.

You can cure yours in a carport, under a porch, on a table on the shady side of the house, in the garage or shed for shade. If you need to move the air around for better circulation, set up a fan to blow over them during the day. Any place that you have good shade from the sun and great air flow around the bulbs is the perfect place to cure your garlic.  

This picture was taken the year before my new technique ; ) 

Tip #9 - Hang in small bunches to cure or lay them flat with good space between each bulb.   

If you are short on space, is often easier to hang your garlic up in small bunches to cure. Stagger the bulbs in groups of 6 to 8 bulbs and hang them to dry, leaving space between each garlic bundle. Great air flow is essential.  

To lay out your garlic to cure, you never want to put them on bare concrete. I have these fantastic vintage bulb trays with wire mesh bottoms that allow me to stack my varieties and still have great air flow. 

Before I found these trays, I used to lay them out on the wooden tables from my greenhouse, well spaced out from each other. If you have nothing of that sort to use, you can also lay them out on a wooden pallet, on cardboard, on newspapers, or in wicker baskets.     

Internet picture, not my braids : ) Aren't they amazing!

If you want to braid your garlic, is a good idea to wait until the leaves are quite dry but still pliable so that the leaves are not still green and wet when you make them into plaits. Softneck garlic is much easier to braid as it does not have that hard stem in the middle, is more flexible. Google for directions, there are some really good sites that will show you how to do it step by step.  

Tip #10 - Leave your garlic to cure for a minimum of 2 weeks but ideally 3 or 4. 

I leave my garlic in the curing shed for about 6 weeks to ensure it is super well cured and stores well in the pantry. Well cured garlic lasts us till we harvest the next year's crop so we are never without homegrown. No one wants store bought after growing their own ; ) 

I also am not in any rush to deal with them as there are so many other garden tasks to do in the heat of the summer. Towards the end of August or early September, I finish trimming them up and bring them inside. This is when I usually need garlic for my tomato sauces and other canning, so the timing is perfect. 

As they are already clean, I just snip off the leaves, leaving about an inch of stem to use as a crank to open up the bulb when you need it for cooking. 

If you prefer to do the traditional way of curing, this is your big clean up day when you trim up the roots, clean up the bulbs, cut off the tops. Turn on the tunes, sit in the shade, drink lots of water, laugh with a friend.  

Store with good air flow in a cool, dry spot. I keep mine in an open wicker basket in the pantry. If you braided yours, hang in the kitchen or pantry, out of the direct sun.   

Things of note...  

- Do not leave your garlic out in the sun to dry or cure, you will have issues with the curing.

- Do not wet your bulbs. We are too humid here in the PNW for garlic to cure well if wet.  

- Always leave three layers of wrapping on the bulbs after you have finished cleaning it up. 

- If you notice any of your garlic yellowing, falling over, not looking right while growing in the garden, pull it out right away and have a look at it to check for worms. If you were to leave a wormy bulb in the ground, the worms will go from bulb to bulb, possibly ruining your entire crop.  

- What to grow in the garlic bed after harvest? Your fall and winter crops, bush beans, beets, your winter carrots, cucumbers, daikon radishes (watermelon radishes are fantastic).  

Happy Harvesting and Curing ~ Tanja