Horizontal. Just like picture 3 on a mesh metal storage shelf. I only grow about 150 plants. The shelf sits in a basement with a dehumidifier. They are stacked on each other just like the picture. I cut off the stalks once fully dry. Then they sit on that same storage shelf all year. I still have about 50 bulbs for eating from last years harvest. I walk by the shelf daily and easily smell when one is going bad.

I use method 1. I tie them in bundles and hang them in my garage to cure. Don't have the space to cure them any other way.

Rodney

I use the hanging method for both garlic and onions but I give them more space for air movement between the bundles then is shown in the first picture. I put a fan on them as well.

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Thanks for the great idea Rodney!! I'm going to have to try that this year. The big question is if I can find any metal coat hangers in the house. We don't take stuff to the dry cleaners very often and most of our hangers are plastic or wood these days. How many garlic do you usually tie in a bundle? I'd imagine if you put too much weight on the hanger it might straighten out the hook.

LoneJack I bet if you asked the dry cleaners they might have some hangers to give you. Or I have plenty if you're interested. I don't take much to the dry cleaners but my parents do and I often use their hangers for projects.

This is a great idea! It will be my first year curing garlic and I can't wait to see what's been growing all this time! I have a few options for where I could cure them, but I think vertically would be the best choice in terms of space saving.

1. Outdoor shed which creeps me out a bit because of the spiders in it

2. Downstairs where they could have a dehumidifier and a fan on them

3. Garage where they could have a fan on them, but no dehumidifier

Decisions, decisions!

LoneJack- I'd say I put about 10 bulbs per bundle. The hanger hooks are stronger than they look.

Rodney

Thanks for the offer Sunflowers. I actually noticed that a lot of my old hunting clothes are hanging on metal hangers and a few things in a storage closet are as well so I have at least 15-20 available.

I'd probably go with option 3 for curing if you don't have electricity available in the shed for a fan and so the creepy spiders don't build webs in your curing garlic ;-). Then after curing you can braid them since they are soft necks or you can trim up the stems and roots and store them in the cool basement. One caution though...a dehumidifier will desiccate the bulbs fairly quickly when they are in storage. It will just suck all of the moisture out of the bulbs/cloves within a few months. I run my dehumidifier in my basement until about September so I have to store my garlic elsewhere for a couple months until I turn it off.

Good to know! We, too, turn ours off during the winter, so I'll just store them somewhere else until that happens and then bring them downstairs. However, the basement seems to be the warmest place in the winter, so I may store them in the garage during the winter because it stays above freezing. I just don't want them to sprout! Sounds like I need to do some reading on harvesting, curing and storing garlic.

I lay my garlic, onions, and tulips out horizontally on old wire refrigerator shelves suspended up about an inch above cardboard boxes. These are all on my front west-facing screen porch, which gets cross breezes from all sides of the screens but protects from rain and really never actually gets cool in the summer, since the shading trees were removed by a tornado quite some years ago. That would be like Example 3. They stay out there as long as it takes, but are stored in my kitchen ready to hand, by the stove actually. Multiplier onions, and other smaller onion bulbs and what soft neck garlics I have will get braided, if possible and hung in the kitchen. For small groups of bulbs, I have some paper lunch bags that I punched some extra holes, and one of those three tier wire hanging racks (I need another). My kitchen runs cool, maybe low to mid 60's in the winter time. I get some drying out of some cloves towards the end but no sprouting.

Store bought onions sprout pretty quickly for me, but my own cured ones last very well, pretty much until they are used up. My garlics all last well through re-planting time and far into the middle of winter and generally are ok until they are used up. I only plant back the largest of the tulip bulbs (at the same time I plant my garlic); so I sort out the best hundred or so. The rest are almost all too small to bloom next year. I found out the hard way that planting tulips too shallow encourages them to multiply into nests like a multiplier onion and all of the daughter bulbs are then too small to be much good for blooming the next year.

The order of harvest is such that the tulips are completely cured and bagged before the garlic comes in, and the garlic is done before the onions; so they all get to use the same racks. I am getting ready to dig my tulips pretty soon now. They are all Triumphs so they have all completed blooming even this far north. So I suppose it is time to clean out the porch!