Garlic

The tops of my garlic are starting to yellow and fall over ,I will be lifting them to dry later ,

 

I've got 130 drying, 6 in the kitchen and have already eaten about 20 bulbs from this season's harvest plus there's dozens more still to pull including my elephant garlic - I had a poke around one of the bulbs a couple of days ago and it was about 100mm dia and they're still putting on weight.

 

I dug mine up last week. The tops had pretty much keeled over. Not a bad crop really, a decent size

 

Dug about 5 up ,not as big as I hoped so will leave the rest a little longer,I only planted 20 or so,as we used to be away for 3 months + ,so next year will plant more different types.

 

Lifted the last of mine yesterday. These were grown from a Tesco's garlic planted in a flower trough. Lack of sun and a three week absence in mid June/July due to holiday didn't help development!

 

very usable

 

Harvested my Elephant garlic yesterday - 15 bulbs up to 300g each, precisely the same weight of my best one last year. I was hoping to better that size and blame the miserable weather earlier this year as all my other garlic has been on the small side.



I haven't got a tennis ball to demonstrate how big they are (dog's eaten them all) but this is a 300g bulb from last year:




Most of the cloves from these will be planted this autumn, so about 50 bulbs next year and a couple of hundred the year after that.

 

I planted solent wight last year and dug them all up last week to dry out. I've found they don't really have as strong a flavour as I imagined. Some of them are big bulbs too. Also this is the first time I've cooked with fresh garlic too, we usually use the paste. Am I doing something wrong here?

 

I was going to plant solent wight this year...........so any info will be useful Jane.
The garlic I grew last year was a tad small.

 

No - freshly pulled garlic is known as 'green garlic' and is sold as such and as we grow loads of garlic we have enough to start pulling it at a stage before most people would, so we've been eating it for many weeks already. Lovely pungent smell to it. We're probably slighty immune to the flavour due to the amount we eat, so if it's not strong enough at the 'green' stage, where it can be quite strong smelling, go for something stronger!

 

I love green garlic,you tend to see it on sale abroad more than here,lovely delicate flavour

Just seen 400 fags avoided gotta keep this up !!!!!

 

But I pulled most of them up over a week ago. They have been drying off in my greenhouse and with all the hot weather we have been having, the stems and skins went papery quite quickly.

When does green garlic become normal garlic then?

 

As it stops growing "green" and the bulbs start to swell with the tops dying back,I think ??

 

I hate you lot! my garlic was an almost waste of space, I prefer onions anyway and will stick with them cos I ain't bad at growing them, unlike garlic!

Garlic likes the same conditions as onions? enough said, the onions took the onion bed, garlic had to fend for itself in a obscure part of the garden.