Ophio Garlic Harvest 2012

2012 Garlic Harvest photo by Rick Jackofsky

Our show at the Ossie Davis Theater last night went very well, and I'd like to thank everyone who came out on a holiday night to see The Homegrown String Band in action. I hope you all had as much fun as we did.

I harvested my garlic today, about a week earlier than I had planned. We had a very warm winter this year and I'm not sure if that helped or hurt the garlic. We harvested our garlic scapes three or four weeks ago. This year, I lost about 10% of my crop to some sort of root rot and the 90 bulbs I dug up today were all small to medium size. People often ask me when they should harvest their hard necked (ophio) garlic. I usually go with the rule of thumb (green thumb, of course!) that you should harvest when half of the leaves have turned yellow. The remaining green leaves represent the layers of protective "paper" that will protect the garlic during curing and winter storage. If you let all the leaves die back there will be no paper wrapping the bulbs. You also run the risk of the heads over ripening and beginning to open up, which creates an opening for moisture and disease that will drastically shorten the storage life of your garlic. We were eating garlic from last year's harvest into March this year. Another thing to remember when harvesting garlic is that you should never harvest from wet ground. I usually stop watering my garlic patch a week or two before I plan on harvesting. Now I will dust off the loose dirt and cull out any damaged heads, which we will use uncured, then I'll let the rest of the garlic cure in a cool, dry, well ventilated area (our kitchen) for about two to four weeks. At that point, I will cut off the tops, trim the roots, take off the outside layer of dirty paper, and store the bulbs in mesh bags in our basement. When we perform at the Hudson Valley Garlic Festival in September I will try to find some garlic with bigger cloves to use as seed garlic for my fall planting. If not I will pick the biggest cloves from my harvest; "plant the best and eat the rest!"

Garlic Scape Harvest Time

This past week we harvested scapes off the 60 garlic plants that sprouted from the cloves I planted in the fall. The scape is the flower stalk and bud of the garlic plant. According to conventional wisdom, breaking off the stalk as soon as it starts to curl will encourage the development of bigger, tastier garlic bulbs. There is some debate on if and when the scapes should be removed. Some say that though the bulbs will be a bit smaller, they will store better if the scape is left on longer. We decided to go for bigger bulbs figuring we will use them quick enough. Another benefit to removing the scapes is they are quite tasty themselves. We roasted some scapes with olive oil, salt and pepper in our solar oven and they were delicious. The taste and texture was kind of like a cross between garlic and string beans.

Photo by Rick Jackofsky