Harvesting Garlic

Growing and planting garlic in your garden is not as challenging as harvesting it. Being one of the easiest plants to cultivate, garlic is the most preferred choice of plant to grow for many novice gardeners. In fact, one clove of garlic can be grown into a full blown garlic plant, with each bulb having approximately 15 - 20 cloves.

Like most plants, garlic grows well in a fertile organic rich soil and requires proper sunlight for its growth and sustenance. While planting a garlic clove, make sure you plant it in an upright position, about an inch below the surface of the soil, and when planting individual cloves, do not plant very close and keep at least a gap of 3 - 5 inches between them so that they get enough space to grow well. Hence, with sufficient sunlight, nutrition and water, the plant can grow quite easily. However, where most gardeners find themselves stuck or wondering is while deciding which is the best time to harvest garlic.

Guidelines for Harvesting

When to Harvest Garlic?
Determining the right time of harvesting garlic can be a bit intimidating as if you harvest before time or prematurely, the cloves will be tiny and not fleshy, while on the other hand, if harvested late, the bulb would burst out. Hence, once the plant has grown, you should start looking out for signs that may indicate it's time of harvesting. Since different garlic varieties and weather conditions have different harvesting times, the rule of thumb to be considered for harvesting garlic is to wait for the leaves to have a browning discoloration or the bulbs to grow to a proper size. For this, simply loosen the dirt over the one or two garlic bulbs and while keeping them in ground, try to have an idea of their size. If the bulbs are large enough, this is the right time to harvest and if they are too small, it means they need more time to develop. However, on an average, the ideal time for harvesting is between July and August, when grown under normal climatic conditions and in warmer climates, it is better to harvest during spring.

How to Harvest Garlic?
After knowing when to harvest garlic, the next important thing to learn is how to harvest garlic. For some people it would be just digging out of the ground, but there a few things to be kept in mind while harvesting garlic bulbs. While harvesting, do not pull the bulbs out, else you may end up having handful of tops, with no garlic bulbs. Rather gently dig them out as freshly dug bulbs are more prone to bruise if not handled carefully. Therefore, use a digging fork to loosen the soil and then dig out the garlic. After digging the garlic out, do not leave them lying on the ground as too much of sun exposure can blanch and burn the garlic cloves and deteriorate their taste. Instead, brush off the soil and keep the freshly harvested garlic bulbs in a cool, dark and dry place as early as possible.

Hence, after reading the article you all will agree that planting as well as harvesting garlic is not as difficult as it seems to be. You just have to be a little careful and gentle while harvesting and should not make a rush or delay while deciding the harvesting time.