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Spring Maintenance – The Secrets To Planting Garlic
As spring arrives, the garlic crop will come out of dormancy and continue to grow. We usually add a bit more mulch to suppress weeds in the early spring. But other than that, the only maintenance required before harvesting is to keep the weeds out.
So how do you know when garlic is ready for harvesting? Depending on where you live, the harvest times can vary a bit. You will begin to see the tops of the crop begin to brown off in early summer. As soon as two-thirds of the garlic tops have browned off, the crop is ready to harvest and cure.
For us here in east-central Ohio, that is usually the first few weeks of July. It can certainly vary from late June to late July depending on your climate.
Once the garlic is harvested, it needs to cure for a few weeks to dry out and be ready for storage. One thing you do not want to do is wash your crop off! Allow the dirt around the cloves to dry off naturally – water can prematurely rot the crop as it dries.
We hang our crop up in the barn and let it air out. Usually, within a few weeks, we can cut the heads off with a bit of the stem and they are ready to store.
