Garlic 2017 post harvest notes

[svalli]

I have now all garlic harvested and cleaned for drying and curing. Field is the best teacher and I have learned a lot this season.

• Hardnecks are the way to go this far north. Some softnecks bolted in the stem, which is quite normal, but some made a real scape and those had really small bulbs.
• Thick mulch is essential for winter protection. We did not have a thick snow cover, but thanks to the mulch, this time winter losses were minimal.
• I should plant most in the fall and minimize the amount for spring planting for bulbils and varieties, which I have only few cloves.
• Bed preparation on the field should start early in the fall, so that it is ready in case weather gets cold or very rainy early.
• Moving garlic and onions to an other field got rid of onion fly maggots, so from now on I will have crop rotation with greater distance.
• Every year is different, so what works one year may not the next. It is just best to try to be well prepared and not to give up in case of some setbacks.

This year I am drying the garlic in the garage with fan heaters blowing on them. Nights here get so cool, that outdoor drying does not work. Two years ago I got some kind of fungus gnat larvae ruining a lot of the garlic in storage, since I hung them to dry outdoors for couple of weeks and the gnats were flying around the garlic. I did not realize that time why those tiny flies were buzzing around the garlic hanging on our back porch, until later in storage I found really tiny orange larvae inside the garlic wrappers and quite many cloves were rotting. Last year I hung the garlic to dry in the house, but it smelled a bit in the beginning and family complained a bit. Now I asked my husband to make space in the garage, so I could hang the garlic there for few weeks to dry.

Sari

[My Foot Smells]

nice looking harvest, looks clean and pristine. like the ladder drying rack too w/ the toe tag. finally a purpose for one of those orgami folding ladders. wonder what the gnat was?

[PureHarvest]

Looks nice. Way to go!

[Father'sDaughter]

Looks great! Yes, drying in the house makes the house reek of garlic for the first week or so, but once it starts drying out a bit the smell disappears.

Enjoy the harvest!

[bower]

Svalli, I'm with you 100% that hardnecks are the ones worth growing in the north.

Our softnecks this year were small: many plants were weak and there were a lot of misses. They just didn't recover well from the harsh winter. At first I thought it was just my own planting or some mistake I made, perhaps gave them less mulch. But the story at my friend's farm was the same. Lots of small softneck, not many large, and quite a few lost. In mine the wireworm damage was also close to 95% of bulbs, much more than the other varieties.

The hardneck in contrast had almost no misses.
Our porcelains are the earliest and they did fantastic this year, were not at all bothered by the late spring and really took advantage of the hot dry summer.

I am still undecided about the other varieties I'm growing, which are later.
Our rocambole Spanish Roja is IMO a bit too late. Three weeks later than the porcelain, the weather is already turning rainy by the time. I would like to find a rocambole that is earlier, although it's not doing too badly.
Persian Star and Chesnok Red are nice but so late, their chance of maturing in a bad year is pretty poor.
Kostyn's Red Russian I grew up from rounds this year and was pretty early to scape and mature. It could be as early as the porcelain or close to it; so I hope it does well in all ways.

[Gardeneer]

Last fall I planted just 18 garlic, as experiment down here.
They did well. Now i am using the last one.
I planted from store bought and they did surprisingly well.
This fall I am going to plant about 100 cloves.
I planted mine around Thanksgiving. When do you plant yours ?

[brownrexx]

Beautiful harvest!

[Spike2]

Very nice!! What types do you have hanging there?

[svalli]

Gardeneer:
I should start planting in end of September or early October, because the ground may be frozen by end of October. Novembers have been lately warmer than normal, but it is usually quite rainy and planting to the wet cold mud is horrible.
Spike2:
All on the left are Siberian Marbled Purple Stripe and on the right side I have multiple different hardneck and some softneck varieties. This Siberian is most hardy and grows the best here, but I am experimenting with others to find some, which would grow well in this climate.

Sari

[rxkeith]

hard necks are the way to go here too.

i tried idaho silver, and inchelium red, and they struggled, and never sized up really well, so whats the point. so many others to grow that do well here.

we have a big ole barn to store the garlic for drying. i take mine up to the loft where it open, and airy. nights are cooler here. i will trim them up some time in september when its time to start planting.



keith

[Gardeneer]

Originally Posted by svalli

Gardeneer:
I should start planting in end of September or early October, because the ground may be frozen by end of October. Novembers have been lately warmer than normal, but it is usually quite rainy and planting to the wet cold mud is horrible.
Spike2:
All on the left are Siberian Marbled Purple Stripe and on the right side I have multiple different hardneck and some softneck varieties. This Siberian is most hardy and grows the best here, but I am experimenting with others to find some, which would grow well in this climate.

Sari

Ok. Over here ground won't freeze until sometime in December. By the my garlic would be up, few inches tall. They will over winter deep frost and snow, w/no problem. But then we have mild winters, with just few inches of frost line. And hot weather arrives very early. So it pays to plant early.