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Transcript: Welcome to our weedy garlic patch this season, friends, we did not get our spring mulch on in the nick of time, and this is what happens. But nonetheless, the garlic is still looks fabulous and it has dried down to the extent that I’m going to harvest it today. And I’m super excited to show you how we harvest it.
And how do I know it’s time? Take a look at all of these leaves. And each of the above ground leaves correspond to the below ground wrappers. And so once once half of the leaves are browning, dried, and it’s July, it’s time. And this is a softneck variety, which is why it’s drooping over and there was no scape. And the softnecks in general will mature before the hard necks, especially here in the northeast.
And so I’m going to come in with this tool, I cannot recommend it highly enough: forks are amazing. And we use them in so many ways. But especially with garlic, there’s really no other way. It’s very tempting (especially we can see how big and beautiful the bulb is just below the ground) to just pull it. And even sometimes certainly in our ground here that doesn’t have the straw and doesn’t have a good mulch layer, the ground is going to be really hard around it. It also has been really hot and dry. And so the likelihood of the stem fully pulling off and leaving that bulb in the ground is very great if I just go to pull it. And at that point, it’s very easy to do that. And then you just have to eat that garlic right away. You really can’t store that garlic any more than a month or so.
So when you are harvesting your garlic, give yourself plenty of space and go in I’m going about eight, nine inches away from the actual bulb so there’s plenty of space. And I’m working up that soil around it ever so slightly, lifting it up, and then leaning into that garlic and it’ll pop right up. And oh, this is such a beautiful head of garlic. This variety is Regatusso, by the way, it’s one of my favorites. It’s very mild, but very, very flavorful. And I shake off all of this soil all that I can it’s reasonable in the field, because after the glaciers left 15,000 years ago, these soils have been building up and we have feet and feet of glorious top soil. We have almost 5% organic matter here on the farm. And I want to keep as much of this beautiful soil that has been built for generations before us. And that we’ve invested so much in right here right in the soil.
So shake it off, and shake off any large clumps that are attached to the bulbs. But otherwise, from here, we’ll be taking this into the drying shed, and I can’t wait. Stay tuned for the next video about how to store and how to hang your garlic so it will properly cure so you’ll be enjoying it all winter long.
