Pull your garlic when the bottom three leaves have turned brown. Garlic puts on the the bulk of it's size in the last couple weeks and they could just have been pulled to early. So how many leaves starting from the bottom have died out?

That makes sense. On each plant there were at least one or two completely brown leaves, but many leaves were partly brown and had brown strings hanging from them. But as for onions, that's very important to understand that bulbs put on most of their size in the last few weeks.

It's a bit annoying that there isn't a better way to establish garlic maturity. With onions, you can SEE the bulb expanding, and the plants CLEARLY fall over when it's time for harvest. No such indicator with garlic.

You could always just pull one out and look. But the best way is monitoring the bottom leaves. During the final bulking in the last few weeks they pull all the nutrients out of the leaves from the bottom up. Three completely brown leaves on the bottom has always been the way to determine harvesting, but if the fourth starts to turn brown no big deal.

The reason for using three leaves as an indicator is to prevent the cloves from splitting apart in the bulb. This will lessen the storage length of the garlic and you want nice tightly packed cloves covered with paper.

Any browning from the top down doesn't indicate maturity, and usually indicates a problem, like bulb rot or a moisture problem.

I wonder if you planted Hard-neck Garlic. ? I use to plant that and I don't remember it getting a very large head.

As I said, the nursery frustratingly didn't specify what variety it was. It's a pretty reputable nursery, so I have a hard time believing they'd carry climate-inappropriate garlic. For example, they only carry short day onions. Now, it was pretty cheap, maybe $5 for three bulbs. I am ASTONISHED how expensive garlic is when you get it online.

If the garlic was hardneck then they would have produced a scape. Sometimes a softneck garlic will scape but usually not. Depending on where the garlic originally came from it can take 2-3 years to acclimate to your local growing conditions. So it's always best to try to source your original planting stock from a supplier that is close to your location.

As was already mentioned, garlic is just like any other allium in that its bulbs size up the most within a few weeks of being ready to harvest. As it grows it first looks like a scallion, then it forms a round, and eventually splits into cloves. To check the size of the bulb without harvesting all you need to do is gently dig away some of the soil from around the bulb.

When to harvest was already mentioned. It is important to have some green leaves (or mostly green) remain when you harvest. It ensures that you will have wrappers on the bulb and this is what allows it to store well. If you wait until all the leaves have died you will be left with exposed cloves and they won't store nearly as long. It's better to harvest slightly early than late.

Rodney

These garlic plants never produced any scapes. No central stalk either, which suggests softneck. That's a good idea to do some gentle digging to assess bulb size without pulling them.

I just ironically pulled some of my garlic and took some photos to share a tutorial about how to tell when garlic is ready to harvest. Here are a couple. Note that this is soft neck garlic. I've never grown hard neck, so I can't speak to that variety. I grew three varieties this year, and there was definitely a difference in size between the three. I've still got my Silverskin in the ground (the "not ready" photo). The stalks are quite narrow, the bulb (you can kinda see it up against the others) is smaller than the other variety. As it's just starting to show signs of cloves, I'm not expecting it to get much larger, but we'll see.

If there are definitive cloves on your bulbs and the stalks look "on their way out" like this "ready" photo, then your garlic is done, you just didn't get large bulbs for some reason. I wouldn't give up on garlic though. Garlic is one of my favorite things to grow, and properly cured, I can get enough garlic out of a 3'X3' patch to last me an entire year. Of course, I'm in CA only a few hours away from Gilroy, so I may just be lucky!

it is to early to harvest.

Last Fall I had a few garlic cloves in the kitchen start to get a green shoot, so I stuck them in one of my flower pots and kinda forgot about them. Because of this thread I thought to check them today. Down, down, down I went - about 2 " and found an actual head with cloves about the size of yours, Dan. I don't have any brown on any of my leaves, so, at all your advice, I will leave them to grow larger. Such a pleasant surprise!

As I said, the indicator for harvestability used to be a few brown stems. I had a few brown stems. But as per the advice here, the best indicator for harvestability is a bit more involved.

Here in Michigan I plant Music, a softneck variety. I have 250 heads that I just cut the scapes off of tonight. As has been said, a lot of the size is attained during the last few weeks, I expect mine to be ready to pull about the first part of July. I wait for the leaves to turn brown but don't use that as my only indicator. I then pull one or two and see what I have and then decide to pull them all or wait.

I have some new-to-me elephant garlic this year, so that's what is causing me to wonder if I can tell when it's really ready.

Good luck with the rest of yours, Dan.

Annie

The tops of mine died so I dug down and got mine. The final bulb is about the size of a 50 cent piece. I’m excited to use some of the cloves.

I hope yours are growing larger rapidly, Dan.

OK, my tops died completely, and I pulled up ten or so decent sized bulbs. Not large, but not disappointingly small. This was my first year growing garlic, and I've learned some lessons. I am somewhat stunned, however, about the online price of plantable cloves. I got mine pretty cheaply at a nursery, but they didn't specify the variety, which was a little screwy. But why should plantable cloves be so expensive? Many times more expensive than supermarket garlic.

But why should plantable cloves be so expensive? Many times more expensive than supermarket garlic.

Because people will pay those prices to get the garlic varieties they want.

Annie - I'm sure it was a typo, but Music is a hardneck.

But I don't pay exorbitant prices to get the varieties of seeds that I want. Why is that the case with garlic? In fact, harvesting and packaging of garlic involves a lot less work than does production, extraction, and packaging of seeds, especially hybrids. Just dig 'em up, and throw 'em in a bag.

Garlic continues to grow a while past when many say to harvest. I love it fresh so I pick some early, some on time and some late. So late at times I have a hard time finding the bulb because the plant is so dead/dried up. It all tastes the same to me, last ones are starting to split and are larger then all others harvested.

Most vegetables will produce hundreds to thousands of seeds per plant. One garlic plant will produce one bulb. How many customers can you supply with one bulb? You also have to think of garlic as a perennial vegetable. Like asparagus and rhubarb, the people who grow garlic aren't buying new stock to plant every year (unless they want to try a new variety, or something catastrophic happens to their own stock like disease wipes it out). Suppliers can charge more for it and named varieties will cost more.

Also, how much does Bonnie get away with charging for a single vegetable plant in a big box store? I haven't paid attention but I believe it is over 6 dollars a plant now... So when compared to seeds garlic may be costly but when compared to big box store vegetable plants and perennial vegetables it isn't so bad.

Rodney

Dan, I didn't pay anything extra for my 'starts'; they were cloves from the grocery that started to get sprouts. Why can't you just buy one of the cheaper whole ones from the grocery, break it up and plant the cloves?

Yes, I suppose I could get grocery store garlic, and just try to farm that. But grocery store produce is often salted with inhibitors that prevent sprouting. I gather that trying to grow grocery store garlic can lead to mixed results. Also, who knows if it is a softneck variety that is appropriate for my climate? Though it is rumored that grocery store garlic is more often softneck, because more of it is grown commercially. Also, grocery store garlic is often pretty old, and I think that age reduces germination. Interestingly, it is written that a good check for age is whether there are incipient roots at the base. That's U.S. garlic. Old garlic from international suppliers has the roots carefully scraped off, because the FDA is worried about importation of soil borne pathogens. That all being said, I would suspect that organic garlic might offer the most chances of success.

And Rodney, what you say about plants producing loads more seeds than garlic produces cloves is true, but again, store bought garlic is VASTLY cheaper than online varietal cloves. I buy a bundle of 50 varietal onion plants from Dixondale for a few bucks. Why can't I buy 50 varietal garlic cloves for a few bucks? Yes, takes more time to get those cloves, but still ... Just doesn't make a lot of sense. Comparing garlic cloves with live plants is comparing apples and oranges. No real effort is needed to keep garlic cloves alive and healthy during transport and marketing.

NMV, NWI. Forgot what thread this was.

I started off my garlic collection buying Music and German White (both hardnecks) at local farmer's markets. I added 6-8 more hardneck varieties purchased from a couple online sellers and a couple softnecks purchased locally.

Here it is 10 or more years later and I am only growing the German White that I started out with because it grows consistently well in my garden every year. A few of the others either did not do well and were culled or got botrytis one really wet year and I lost the seed stock.

Keep at it and you will find a varierty that does well in your garden. I suggest looking at local farmer's markets and right now is the time to look.

Nope. As I said, I can buy a horde of varietal onion plants for a few bucks. Same with dry onion sets. I get a big varietal choice. I have some assurance that they won't carry pathogens to my garden bed. Each and every garlic clove sure doesn't go through disease testing. As with onions, it's fair to just test the whole bed. That's interesting if because the roots are cut out of imported garlic, you can't even grow it. But the root tissue is still there inside, so I'm not sure that's completely accurate. The idea is to prevent transmission of foreign soil. I don't think potatoes are a good comparison. I can get plantable seed potatoes for a lot less than I can get plantable garlic cloves. I can get many pounds of seed potatoes for the price of a few garlic cloves.

Garlic needs at least 6 inches of space per plant and takes 8-9 months to grow into a head with only maybe 8-10 cloves (less for hardneck) of that head being of a decent plantable size.

A single onion plant will produce hundreds of seeds. Each onion set or plant sold is grown from a seed at a very intensive spacing for a very short amount of time before it is either pulled and cured (set) or sold as-is (as plant bundles or in cell packs). The productivity cabilities of onion sets and plants blow away garlic by a huge margin. The two aren't comparable. Onions are also grown as an annual so the same people are buying and planting them every year.

If you want to compare garlic to onions then comparing garlic to egyptian onions, a perennial, would be more accurate. Egyptian onions multiply readily and grow like weeds without much care. Yet the topsets are currently selling for $18.50 an ounce at Territorial Seed and you only get 10-20 topsets for that price.

When comparing costs, the generic California White garlic which is grown by farmers for eating is almost a different thing altogether than the specialty varieties that are available to home gardeners and market growers. Taste test a grocery store bulb next to a homegrown Transylvanian bulb and you'll see why people prefer named varieties and why they have the premium cost.

Rodney

A single sweet corn plant takes many months to grow, more space per plant, and produces 2-3 ears. Those might sell for a dollar. Put a garlic plant there, and you'll get one head. A dollar per full head of garlic would be a fine price, and consistent with supermarket garlic. So why isn't that done with specialty garlic? I'm seeing several dollars per garlic head for gardening when I look online. Or, more to the point, why isn't corn a few dollars per ear? Yes, corn takes somewhat less time to mature than garlic, but that's not a big factor here. We're talking one growing season.

But again, why should specialty garlic cost a lot more than supermarket garlic? Does being special make it hard to grow? A farm growing garlic should be able to supply it's own clove starts, so supply shouldn't be an issue.

I don't want to pretend that I know much about garlic, but there's something kinda fishy here. Would be nice to get some feedback from a specialty garlic supplier.

About part of the reason for the price of seed garlic.

After the breakup of the Soviet Union the USDA got permission to travel the Caucasus mountains in Russia collecting samples of garlic varieties for their collections. They didn't have the room on their own farms to grow their garlic; so they came to agreements with garlic growers to grow the garlic for them. It wound up there wasn't enough demand for the USDA's share of the crop because they refused to give samples to individuals in the farming industry. Which is how they get rid of much of what they grow, or have grown. They believe corporate farmers have more need than a veteran farmer for the excess garlic bulbs; so most of the agreements they had they abandoned.

Much of the garlic grown is by smaller growers who only sell after they've harvested and dried their crop and know what's available to sell. Many of the growers who sell their own production also sell food grade garlic (smaller bulbs) by variety at much reduced prices compared to their seed garlic prices.

I'm sure there's more to that story but here's a link to an article that relates some of that story.

I had a huge plot of garlic in the field next door and talking to a neighbor whose relative grew the garlic in his garden that all that garlic originated from. He told me that it was German Red so I forked up a huge cluster about a foot in diameter of small bulbs and rounds with very little soil in the clump.

I grew out those small bulbs and got bulbs up to 3" diameter out of the 1" bulbs in the clump. So I'd guess if you ordered the food grade bulbs and grew them out you'd get similar results. Give them a little more space for more sunlight and lots of mulch, and cut the scapes off the hardnecks for the best results.

Regarding indications for when to harvest garlic; there are some good tips in the link below. Jeff Nekola maintained SSE's entire garlic collection for many years, and left behind a great informative website:

Heirloom garlic archive

There are pages of photos there too for many varieties, along with SSE's original source info. A good resource when considering new varieties to try.

I currently grow 8 garlic varieties of 4 types (artichoke, rocambole, porcelain, and marbled purple stripe) but grew 36 varieties at one point. The varieties I grow now all reach optimal harvest size within a 2-3 week period in July.

The 2 artichoke types behave slightly differently. "Carpati" will fall over just like mature onions (which is a handier indication than most garlics). "Ron's Single Center" remains upright, but the leaves begin dying back.

Down in your neck of the woods, @daninthedirt (USDA 9a, HZ9, CentTX, Sunset z30, Cfa), you might want to try growing some Creole-type garlic varieties. Those are very Southern adapted. Or I'd be happy to send you some of the "Carpati" artichoke later this summer... not sure how well it would adapt to your location, but since they behave like onions when ready, you might be more comfortable with them. And unlike many artichoke-type garlic varieties, "Carpati" doesn't get tiny cloves in the center - even those are fairly large.

BTW, I usually dehydrate all of my remaining garlic shortly after Fall planting. But last year my life was complicated (having lost my DW) so I "temporarily" put ice cream buckets with the loose cloves downstairs on the basement floor. All of those cloves are still alive, and many still look fresh! The rocambole types began sprouting in March. The artichoke types have only begun to sprout now. "German White" and "Krasnodar Red" have STILL not sprouted, and look the same as when the bulbs were opened last October(!!!)

I'm also looking at a zippered freezer bag in front of me (also in the basement) containing live & sprouted garlic bulbils from last year's rocambole garlic. Together this means that it is possible to restore all of my garlic, should something happen to the Fall planting. Wish I'd known this trick before circumstances caused the loss of my previous collection . :-(

Those are all good comments. Thank you. Yes $24/lb sounds like a lot for garlic, but I'm seeing even more than that these days. Aside from testing, though, I have a hard time understanding why seed garlic is so fantastically overpriced compared with regular store-bought garlic. Takes the same amount of time to grow, then it takes the same amount of time to dry. Same prep for selling with trimming. Just doesn't make a lot of sense. Now, I have to suspect that store-bought garlic is largely imported, which may make it cheap, and may be coming out of long-term storage as well. Turns out that China is by far the world's largest source of commercial garlic. So with seed garlic, I guess you pay a little more for freshness. But that's a fair point that it may only be a one-time purchase, if managed correctly. As to managing correctly, Zeedman's link is excellent. "Size up" is a nice phrase, and that's what my original question was about.

I guess I'm up for this next year.

zeedman - so very sorry for your loss.

Dan - if you're up for it next year, might want to order now. We used many suppliers, but the one we kept coming back to was Filaree farm. Fraser garlic was good too, but also look into the seed savers exchange. Here is a chart that might help you choose what varieties to look for. https://filareefarm.com/variety-comparison-chart/

Thanks, ekgrows. Useful to know of a house that more or less specializes in garlic. They do say, for most of their products, that their shipping date is fall 2023. Just got back from the supermarket. Garlic heads $0.60 each, 1/8 lb per head, which makes $4.80/lb. Compare with $30/lb for these seed heads. I have to picture starving Chinese peons slaving over a garlic patch. Boy, you could make a mint farming seed garlic in China.

60% of garlic sold or used in the USA is from China. I won't eat anything from china and neither will my dogs when they were alive. This was the main reason I started growing my own starting with 2 bulbs costing $20, and from those 2 bulbs I've gotten thousands of garlic bulbs over the last 15 years.

I thank the small garlic growers who did the work and offered to sell me those 2 bulbs of garlic so I could avoid Chinese puke garlic bulbs and powder. If my garlic was wiped out I'd gladly pay those hard working garlic providers $100 a pound to start over.

Garlic from china is dangerous to your health along with China raised Tilapia, and really any food product from China.

I have to say that the health issue with Chinese garlic is somewhat overblown. Granted, you really don't know what's in those cloves, but the scares that are widely publicized don't make a lot of sense. Their garlic has been treated with methyl bromide, as an insecticide and disinfectant. Methyl bromide is a BAD poison. But it's also a gas, and it departs the garlic pretty quickly. As a result, it's the Chinese ag workers who got exposed to it at the fumigation site. Not us. Methyl bromide can leave a small bromine residue, but that's innocuous, health wise. Many of our foods have added bromine. FWIW, I think methyl bromide has now been banned in China because of the threat to ag workers. Chinese Garlic may also treated with chlorine for "whitening", which also serves as a disinfectant. That also disappears. So if you're worried about toxic bacteria and diseases being carried by Chinese garlic, they've been killed off pretty efficiently.

Try this

https://garlics.com/blog/is-garlic-from-china-safe-truth-behind-misconceptions/

That all being said, it's a fair point that an initial investment of $20-30 can, in principle, supply seed garlic like, forever.

I considered commercially growing garlic in the field next door, where their were huge patches of German Red growing wild from the gardens that used to be there. The biggest patch was at least 50'X75'. I was planning to rent a small backhoe to rip out the roots that I knew were there. I was thinking of a plot 50'X50' that wasn't in the wilded patches. I was planning on 3 1/2 foot for the ground beds with 3 rows of garlic in each bed, and 9" spacing. Paths were planned at 4 1/2 feet to allow my mower to get in there. Was expecting to make a dibble out of a sheet of plywood. My plans were to sell the largest bulbs and replant with the mid sized bulbs based on my experience growing huge bulbs from tiny bulbs with the spacing and mulching that I used.

I sent the owner a letter, but I never got a reply.

The following winter the deer ate much of the greens the day before a big snowstorm, first time that happened. The garlic did regrow in the spring.

The property sold shortly after that. And excavation started before the first crop would have been harvested.

OK, I've ordered Lorz Italian, which is a softneck that is supposed to be heat-tolerant and has a long storage time. Shipping is supposed to happen in September. Planting is supposed to be October-November. Now I've heard that garlic may bulb up best if vernalized which, down here, is 8-10 weeks in the fridge. So that might be tight. Is this variety best if vernalized? I'm assuming this is dry vernalization rather than moist vernalization. Yes?

Jack, you are right, Music is a hardneck. I read these threads at night when I'm tired and just confuse myself, LOL.

My garlic was pulled yesterday and is in the pole barn to dry. My first heads came from Territorial, I think, and I've saved cloves since, I've never bought more. I did post on their website that I did that and thought they'd probably take it off, but it's still there, telling people not to buy new seed garlic every year, LOL.

As usual, mine did well:

This one was the average size:

I'll save 50 heads, that'll give me about 250 cloves to plant in the fall. I try to save the biggest ones for planting.

The Elephant Garlic is still in the ground, I pulled one and it wasn't much bigger than the Music and the tops aren't browning as much. Oddly enough I have 20 heads of Elephant Garlic growing and only two produced scapes, so I'm interested to see what I have underground. Scapes or no scapes, that is the question....

Zeedman, I'm sorry to hear you lost your DW. I don't have to know you well to know that it's always difficult, my condolences.

Annie

But again, I have a question about vernalization. Yes or no?

Dan, mine are a different variety, so probably not a valid comparison, but I pull mine and store them in the pole barn until October when it's time to plant. It's no where near 8 weeks of cold for them if I pull them early/mid July and plant in October when average temperatures here are in the 60s. Lows are into the 40s at night, but they are stored inside where it's warmer.

I do not see how refrigeration could possibly hurt, so given your climate I'd probably do that which would probably also help keep the garlic from sprouting too quickly. Or maybe do a portion each way, I often experiment with different techniques in the garden to find which works better for various plants in my area.

Annie

Trouble is, for root crop storage, no one here has basements, and any exterior barns and sheds get up over 100F in the summer. If you want someplace "cool" for produce storage, you'd better clear out a closet. We live on top of caliche, so making a basement is heavy demolition work.

My understanding is that, up north, vernalization happens naturally in the winter after they are planted. Down here, we may never even get a freeze in the winter, and actually spend rather little time with low temperatures in general. Soil temps never get much below 45F. So some artificial vernalization would be necessary.

That makes sense, mine sprout and grow a little before they freeze for the winter. I've been fortunate that all I have to do is put the cloves in the ground and walk away, then wait for them to grow in the spring. There are so many things I can't grow in my short growing season that when something is easy I'm happy!

Annie