Disappointing Garlic Harvest

GoDawgs · May 15, 2019

A quick garlic recap: The garlic plants have looked pretty ratty over the winter. Then they started sending up a lot of wispy leaves which last year turned out to be a sign of having been in the ground too long but a few test bulbs dug a month ago showed no clove division yet so I let them grow more.

Now the plants are starting to fall over so after discovering that the bulbs have indeed divided into cloves, I decided yesterday to dig up the garlic.

Well, they're not much and mostly about 1.5" in diameter:

There are 83 bulbs. The ground was prepped and they were cared for the same as I've done the past two years. One thing that just occurred to me as I write this is that I need to check the soil pH.

They've been tied together in bundles of ten and hung under cover to cure for a few weeks. They're going to be a pain to peel for cooking because they're small and there will be no large cloves to plant come fall. I suppose I should just shut up and be grateful that I have garlic.

And dream of these fat, beautiful 2.5" bulbs from last year:

May 15, 2019	#1
GoDawgs Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Feb 2018 Location: Augusta area, Georgia, 8a/7b Posts: 1,685	Disappointing Garlic Harvest A quick garlic recap: The garlic plants have looked pretty ratty over the winter. Then they started sending up a lot of wispy leaves which last year turned out to be a sign of having been in the ground too long but a few test bulbs dug a month ago showed no clove division yet so I let them grow more. Now the plants are starting to fall over so after discovering that the bulbs have indeed divided into cloves, I decided yesterday to dig up the garlic. Well, they're not much and mostly about 1.5" in diameter: There are 83 bulbs. The ground was prepped and they were cared for the same as I've done the past two years. One thing that just occurred to me as I write this is that I need to check the soil pH. They've been tied together in bundles of ten and hung under cover to cure for a few weeks. They're going to be a pain to peel for cooking because they're small and there will be no large cloves to plant come fall. I suppose I should just shut up and be grateful that I have garlic. And dream of these fat, beautiful 2.5" bulbs from last year: