Harvesting Garlic

I harvested the last of my garlic this evening. I'm never quite sure when to harvest garlic - depending on whom you read, you should pull it out 1) Before it flowers; 2) After it flowers, 3) When it falls over; 4) When 50% of leaves have; i.e. Use your best judgement.

Pulling the last group tonight, I figured out the best way to do it. For the previous two times, I struggled to remove the garlic. First I tried to pull it out (But the stalks wouldn't take it, so the broke). Next I tried to dig it out by digging around it, and then pulling it out. This took quite a bit of effort - For a relatively small bulb, garlic bulbs rootlets are tenacious and thick.

Tonight, it went well. I dug in on one side, leveraged the bulbs, and out they came. I also let them stay a couple more days in the ground, letting the bulbs possibly dry down a bit. It was smooth, and I got done in twenty minutes what it took me forty minutes to do before.

Life's like that sometimes - once you work with the thing in question, rather than brute force, things go quite nicely.

And, you get garlic bulbs for eating as a bonus...