1st Garlic Harvest

Wanted to wish everyone a Happy 4th of July!! I hope you're enjoying your weekend! I am excited to get to watch Fireworks over the York River tonight.

As great as I think the fireworks will be, I have to admit, the highlight of my weekend is my 1st garlic harvest! I'm sure many of you will understand that feeling having planted a seed months ago and watching it grow and then harvesting. These garlics were even transported from Atlanta to Virginia late this winter.  Hardy little guys!

This is my first year growing garlic, so it was a lot of trial and error for sure. I watched a few YouTube videos (what did we do before those) and read a lot, to learn these few tips that I would have never thought

1. When the garlic scapes start to loop around, cut them off. This allows the plant to put its energy into the bulb not producing the flower. PS, they taste and smell AMAZING to, you can use them like you do scallions

2. About 2 weeks before you plan on harvesting, stop watering (what?!?!)... apparently it helps harden the bulb. I gotta admit, this one was hard for me. I kept throwing just a little bit on because we've had temps in the 100s. I don't know if it made a difference, but it didn't seem to hurt

3. Watch the leaves of the plant to know when its ready. When it looks like it starting to die, and the leaves start turning brown when only the top 4-5 leaves are green its ready.

So this was a strange plant to harvest for a newbie, but the result was pure joy!!!

I'm leaving the other two in a few more days to see if they get a little bigger.

1st bulb of Siberian Garlic