Topic: Garlic questions

[caroline7758]

1. I've grown elephant garlic for the first time this year. How do I know when it's ready? Is it the same as any other garlic- the garlic farm seems to say if it has scapes on (mine does), it's ready?

2. How early is extra early? I've got extra early Wight that has developed scapes and starting to get rust. Is anyone digging their garlic yet? It seems too early to me.

[galina]

I wait until the leaves start to wither, then the plant has stopped growing and the goodness in the leaves is going back down into the cloves.  Depending on when you planted and where you are located, this will not happen for another month or longer.  You get larger bulbs and cloves the longer you leave them.  But if you leave them until all leaves are withered, then the membranes around the cloves start deteriorating and the garlic won't store well at all.  It is a bit of a judgement call, especially if we get bad rust and people want to dig up their garlic a bit early so the rust does not spread to leeks.

If in doubt, dig up one typical plant and have a look at the bulb.  Right now I suspect is too early (but I can't see your garlic plants of course).   

[Paulh]

If you're getting rust, then you'll need to lift your crop soon - I take off affected leaves for as long as that's winning but you don't want to let it get a deeper hold. If you strip off affected leaves, it stores OK. I haven't worked out why I'm the only one on the site who gets rust on the garlic!

[ed dibbles]

Elephant garlic do send up flower stalks that should be nipped off as you would garlic scapes to divert energy into the developing bulbs. Over the next couple of weeks the leaves should begin to yellow and they can then be lifted.

I usually harvest the first week of july but they don't all die back at once so you may need to go back the next week for the stragglers. (I don't know how many you are growing. I'm growing forty heads this year.)

In previous years I have grown an early garlic variety that get pulled up in early june. This year it's Solent White and a Scottish variety that are supposed to be july maturing. They are nice strong plants but noticed today the first sign of rust so they may be harvested a little early depending on how the infection spreads.