Big, fat perfect heads that contain only big fat perfect cloves get hung in a cool airy place in old onion bags. I (gently!) rub any remaining dirt off the cured bulbs, trim the roots and tops back and examine each head carefully.īulbs with any damage, like a visibly bad clove or burst wrapper, get pulled apart and the cloves processed into garlic powder (or otherwise used in the kitchen) right away.
After five to ten days, I move the cured bulbs inside and harvest more to refill the table. 'Curing' the garlic out of the sun and in a constant breeze really improves the flavor and 'keeping' quality I'd rather leave some plants in the ground a little longer than rush this step. I only harvest as much at one time as I can fit single file on a big table on our porch with a ceiling fan right over the table. When the bottom third of a plant turns brown, that bulb should be ready to harvest-meaning you'll pull up a nice tight wrapper around big fat cloves. You start keeping a close eye on your plants as the end of the school year approaches. Congratulations, Bets! First let's do a quick review of the garlic harvest process. Mike: Thanks to your tips, we harvested a bumper crop of garlic a nice big bulb for every clove we planted! But there are only two of us who use garlic how do we keep our harvest fresh over the next few months?
