There’s no specific time to harvest garlic!
When growing your garlic (especially for the first time), the most complex part for a beginner is harvesting time of garlic.
How will I know whether my garlic is ready?
What if I couldn’t harvest my garlic bulbs at the right time?
Will I waste all of my efforts only because of that?
Questions like these can create panic in a newbie gardener’s mind. But you don’t need to worry much, as we are here with a thorough guide on the topic. So, just read it with your full attention:
How to Always Know the Right Time for Harvesting Garlic?
Whenever a debate about the right time to harvest garlic arises, different gardeners give different opinions (and eventually times). It’s because different factors and guidelines decide the time of harvesting.
That’s why we are here with all questions (based on guidelines) that you must ask yourself to always harvest garlic at the right time:
Which Type of Garlic am I Growing?
It’s important to know about the type of garlic you are growing. If it’s your first time and you don’t pay attention to the type of garlic, you might end up regretting it.
Two categories of garlic are:
- Softneck Garlic
- Hardneck Garlic
Hardneck garlic usually takes almost two more weeks to get ready for harvesting as compared to Softneck ones. But knowing the type will not tell you the exact time of harvesting.
Here are some additional tips for storing garlic:
- Store garlic in a cool, dark place.
- Do not store garlic in the refrigerator, as this can cause it to lose its flavor.
- Separate the garlic cloves and store them in a single layer.
- You can also store garlic in garlic mesh bags.
By following these tips, you can help to ensure that your garlic stays fresh and flavorful for several months.
Where Do I Live?
Well, you already know the answer to this question, but it’s important to know about the region where you want the garlic to grow. It’s because every region, country, and sometimes state or region has different weather.
People living in colder weather (like Canada or Northern states of the US) are suggested to harvest garlic anywhere between mid-July and mid-August.
As hotter the weather gets as closer the harvesting time should go towards the winter season. But never do it, at least in November, even if you live in the hottest region of the world.
What Does Scape Say About Garlic?
Softneck garlic doesn’t have any escape, so you can’t get help in this case. But if you are growing Hardneck garlic, you must know that scapes will start growing before two to four weeks of the harvesting season.
When you notice scapes, wait for like two weeks and then start paying attention to leaves (that are mentioned after down below).
What Do Leaves and Bulb Wrappers Have to Say?
After paying all their attention to factors like time of the year or type of garlic, many gardeners forget about bulb wrappers and especially leaves.
Leaves are so helpful for those who always want the right time for harvesting that some gardeners say that if you pay full attention to just leaves, you don’t need anything else.
But only a few people know how to read leaves and bulb wrappers accurately, and the good news is that you are about to become one of them.
So, the thing is calculating the difference between the number of leaves of a garlic plant that are died (turned dark yellow or brown) and those that haven’t died (still green). Now, what does the difference mean?
The science behind this technique is that garlic continues to grow, and the size of its bulb continues to increase as long as the leaves of garlic are still green. Now, when they start turning brown (dying), it means that garlic bulbs have started to become weaker and weaker.
- Note: When expert gardeners talk about leaves of garlic, they are actually talking about the number of layers of bulb wrappers.
Now, there are two different things to understand depending on the type of garlic you are growing:
For Hardneck Garlic
For this garlic, it’s always better to start harvesting when the number of dead leaves and green leaves is the same. In other words, half of the garlic leaves must have turned brown, while others must still be green at the time of harvesting.
For Softneck Garlic
Most experts suggest newcomers use the same technique for both types of garlic (to reduce confusion). But as bulbs, wrappers of softneck garlic are more durable, so you can even let more garlic leaves turn brown.
Conclusion
In the end, you have a few things to take care of in order to always know the right time to harvest garlic. A few experts suggest that you can skip one of them (not leaves), and you can still get the best results. But we won’t suggest that because when you’ve put in so much effort for about a year, why risk it due to just one small thing?
Anyways, if you want to grow a huge amount of garlic and start a business, you must know about the right place from where you can buy cloves or bulbs of garlic that’ll earn you money. Click here for more information about the best garlic wholesaler.