TIMING IS EVERYTHING, THEY SAY, AND WITH GARLIC HARVEST that’s especially true. But since the crop is hidden underground, how do you know when this edible Allium is ready—when it’s just the right moment to insure a well-formed head that will also store well through the winter and beyond? Like fortune-telling, it’s all in reading the leaves, apparently. When to harvest garlic–and how.
Don’t let its relatives mislead you. Garlic’s close cousin, the onion (Allium cepa), is more adaptable about its ideal moment to be lifted and cured. You can simply let the tops (leaves) die down right in place, delaying digging a bit to when it’s convenient. Or if you’re in a rush, move things along (assuming the bulbs are well-formed) by knocking over the foliage to urge the plants toward their finale.
With garlic, though, waiting until all the leaves go brown will promote overripe bulbs whose cloves are starting to separate from one another, and the resulting un-tight heads won’t store as long. Each leaf that browns is one fewer potential wrapper to protect the bulb. (Counterpoint: Harvesting too soon can also diminish the bulbs’ shelf life in storage, and may limit the bulbs reaching full size.)
Most “experts” say to harvest when several of the lower leaves go brown, but five or six up top are still green—and depending on the weather, this typically happens here in late July. Those are a few of mine just as they came from the ground yesterday. Early bouts of sustained heat this spring pushed the garlic a little ahead of schedule (as it has so many other plants), so my harvest’s now curing, a process that takes three to eight weeks, before the tops will be cut off, the roots trimmed, and the cured bulbs stored.
In the curing there’s another difference between the most popular Allium cousins garlic and onion: Assuming it’s a dry day when harvest comes, onions can be left out to dry right beside the rows you dug them from. Not so with garlic, which should be moved out of direct sunlight immediately once unearthed. Move it to a garage or porch or shed where the air circulation is good.
Harvesting garlic couldn’t be easier, as long as you remember one thing: Though tempting, do not try pulling the bulbs out by the above-ground stems, or at least without first loosening the soil alongside each row (not too close to the heads!) with a spading fork. Garlic stores best when cured with its leaves on.
Other factors that affect the timing of garlic harvest: the weather, and what kind of garlic you planted.
Softneck garlic (Allium sativum), the most common type of supermarket familiarity, has a row of largish outer cloves and a row or two of inner small ones. It would keep better than what I grow, but I like the bigger (though fewer-per-head) cloves of the hardneck kind…
…because hardneck garlic (Allium sativum var. ophioscorodon) is better-adapted to Northern winters (its long roots, above, hold it in the heave-and-thaw ground especially well), and frankly I just hate all those tiny inner cloves of softneck at peeling time. Nor does comparatively puny softneck make as nice a roasted head of garlic as the bigger-cloved kind.
Hardneck kinds send up a scape—really a woody flower-stalk-to-be—in about June, signaling a month or two remaining before bulb maturity. I cut the scapes off when they started to develop (above), and used them in stir-fries and pasta. I’m not being selfish, harvesting them then (though they are delicious); rather I’m telling the plants to put their energy into bulb production, not sexual reproduction.
Most people agree that is the benefit of removal, though some say leaving it on produces better cloves for replanting as your “seed” stock. I frankly have no idea what’s true (as with so much of gardening, you go on gut); I cut them off.
I make it all sounds like a lot to ponder, but garlic is easy to grow. It took me a mere 15 minutes to harvest my crop of about 75 heads today, and not much work before that, frankly, either.
The backstory on how I got to harvest time:
Garlic is planted in the fall, around October locally, with the biggest and best cloves from the biggest and best heads of last year’s harvest chosen to use as the start of the next crop. (The full how-to on growing is here.)
I’ve also written before about harvest and curing details here (along with the subject of multiplier, or perennial, onions—which I didn’t do so well with in my Northern garden, but that’s another Allium story for another time).
I was reading some of your other posts about garlic, and I realized I should have done that BEFORE I started trying to grow some :) I planted my garlic this spring – is there still hope for them to get to full size? The stalks are about 6-8 inches tall right now, but I feel they should be bigger/taller if harvest is usually in July.
Mi, Michaellynn. Yes, it needs a winter to go through its full cycle of development, at least here. Either the bulbs have to be pre-chilled (to simulate that) or they have to be int he ground in the cold months. In some of the South, I think it’s planted Feb. or March sometimes — not always fall. You will definitely want to try again this October-ish if you are up North, as I am, and let your current crop go as long as it can in the ground…I just don’t think it will bulb up, but maybe you will have “spring garlic” (immature heads, sort of like big scallions, but garlicky) at least, like I mention at the end of this story.
I HAVE PLANTED GARLIC FOR QUITE A FEW YEARS NOW.WE HAVE A HARD NECK VARIETY 106 YR GENERATION,AND PURELY ORGANIC WE ,MY MOTHER AND MY SELF,HAVE BELONGED TO THE HERB ASSOCIATION FOR A NUMBER OF YEARS,IN BRANCH COUNTY,MICHIGAN, (QUINCY, MI.)
WE HAVE HAD A EARLY HARVEST THIS YEAR,AND i’AM PREPAIRING TO
RUN ROPE (NYLON) ACROSS THE TOP OF THE DRYING SHED AND RUN HANGERS VERTICALLY FOR DRYING.TODAY IS THE 28 TH. OF THE MONTH JUNE…. I, GENERALLY, LEAVE 5 SCAPES PER SECTION OF MY ROWS TO GIVE ME A INDICATION OF WHEN TO HARVEST, WHEN THEY LOOSE LEAF TIPS AND BOTTOM OF STALK TURNS DARKER… AND THE PLANTS START TO KNEEL HALF WAY OVER.. BACK IN 91 WE LOST TWO ACRES DUE TO 2 WEEK RAIN..”BUMMER” MOST OF THE ROMAINIAN RED HAS BEEN AROUND 2 , 1/2 TO 3″ DIA… WE USE TO BRAID IT AND SELL IT AT THE FARMERS MARKET FOR $15.00 PER BRAID APPROX 25 BULBS “WOW WEEEEEE” GIVE A SHOUT IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS OR IF I CAN HELP YOU.. ALONG YOUR WAY, IT’S FREE ADVICE,AND I DON’T TYPE REAL FAST,THANK YOU TIMOTHY RICHARDS, QUINCY,MI…
Thanks, Timothy, for all the info. Love the part about how you dry it and so on. Wonderful! I have an eye on mine but am thinking one more week…
I’m a first timer. Interested in the bulbs at the tip of the scapes. Are those seeds for next years plants? Anything I need to do to be able to use them? Dry here in Southern WI but the leave tips are starting to turn brown. Harvest close by? Thanks for your info. Ron
Hi, Ron. I think what you are describing is topset garlic, varieties that form a little bulb (seed) after the flower (scape) up top. These mini bulbs are called bulbils, and here is info on hat to do with them. They are a prolific source of “starts” for future garlic…but the downside is they take longer to shape up into heads than traditional “seed garlic” (heads that you divide into cloves to plant).
whoops. I just dug up my first garlic bulb which looks great. Unfortunately, due to lack of knowedge, I cut if off the stalk, then read about curing.
Should I just leave as is to dry for a few weeks, or can I use it?
Hi, Gayle. Eat it! Delicious fresh as can be! Just that it won’t “keep” for months without curing first…but fine to enjoy it in the near future, yes.
Hi Margret- I harvested my garlic and it is curing. How do I keep some of it till the fall to use for planting next year? I far as I know, if I try to keep it, it will wither and dry up.
Hi, Fran. I store mine all year (nearly 12 months) successfully so keeping cloves till October (planting time, in a few months) is no trouble. Read this story (click here) and follow the green links in it for more info. And one thing especially: never cure garlic in the sun!
I have been growing garlic for about 10 years. One year, havig a bunch of cloves left over from the planting, I put them in a zippy bag and tossed them in the freezer. A large part of growing stuff is seeing what I can get away with. So the cloves sat in the freezer for about a year and then I planted them. Grew beutifully. Tried eating some and they were just fine. s ay go ahead and freeze them if you need to and you have the space.
Hi, Susan. I freeze them (peeled) for later use if I have more than I can store properly through till the next summer but have never tried replanting them. Hilarious.
What other ways do go recommend for storing?I have one of those garlic keepers with the holes in it for air circulation but they still get withered. Thanks
Definitely not in the house proper in one of those keepers. I gradually bring a head or two up from the cellar to have in the kitchen that way, but most are stored like I describe in this older story, and some are frozen.
Just dug my garlic, a week or two earlier than usual. I expected the cloves to be a little more distinct than they are, but found two bulbs whose cloves were already separating. It’s a purple variety that I haven’t grown before. But it’s been more than a month since I cut the scrapes and the bottom leaves were brown so I think I got it right.
Hi, Jeff. There is always some variation in readiness in the harvest — always a few that didn’t develop quite right, and some that developed faster and so on. But sounds like you did well…isn’t garlic wonderful to grow? :)
Hello, I just harvested my garlic, and was wondering about the ” flower” at the top of each stalk… it is full of small seeds which are very fragrant ! Can I cook with these ??
I have never heard of eating garlic seeds, Cathy, unless you mean the baby bulbs — bulbils, I think they’re called, depending what kind you have — that form when the flower fades? But you could just be talking about seed. So I don’t know for certain, sorry to say.
hi
hope u can help. I planted 2 bulbs really late in mar this year. Only 2 stalks and they have flowers on the end of the stalks. Should i take the garlics out now or wait forthe flowers to bloom and die?
sorry if silly question but i ma a complete novice
thanks
Just to clarify, I am in the uk
Hi, Reuben. Even in the UK, it needs a long growing season — planted perhaps in November and harvested in mid to late summer the following year. So that’s one issue — it wasn’t planted early enough to overwinter in the ground. Also, did you use “seed garlic” (meaning bulbs/cloves from a source that sells them for gardening) or ones from the food store (which are often not appropriate for the local climate, and/or have been treated with something to retard sprouting). Here’s my how to grow garlic page for reference. Or all my garlic how-to’s. Again the timing may be a month later, perhaps but the process is the same as here.
I’ve been growing garlic in the Midwest for too many years to remember. I grow the purple striped hardneck variety which stores all year in a brown bag in the basement. Still I learned a few things from reading your article and delight in the comments of others. I got my garlic from Seed Savers Exchange store in Madison, WI. Such a healthy plant for me to eat and easy to grow!
Hi-
I live in the northeastern part of the country and planted my garlic about 2 weeks ago. Was that too early? I just saw this morning that it has sprouted and have about an inch and a half of green shoot showing.
I live in the Fort Worth, Texas area. My garlic is well up and looking like Iris leaves. At this point, I don’t really know if they will make a bulb.
I have never, never figured out how to harvest garlic. Just found your information and maybe I can still learn. I love to cook with garlic and you have inspired me.
I live in the Eastern Panhandle of WV and planted my garlic this past fall (late October, early November), when is the best harvest time this spring/summer?
Hi, Naomi. Let the plants tell you — when the leaves start to brown (probably this summer) and a few lower ones wither but some are still green.
Hi, Carol. Lots of leaves sounds good! :)
I harvested at the end of June in Raleigh, NC last year. Everything is running about 3-4 weeks behind this year, so may be July this summer. I’m trying shallots this year, too. Thanks for all your guidance!
Hi! Beautiful sunny day on southern Vancouver Island BC Canada. First time garlic grower (planted 50 last Nov5) and everything looking good! It is a dedicated raised bed that will be part of a crop rotation plan (3 bed rotation – each bed 8X5feet). I understand the garlic to be in the Onion family. I don’t have alot of experience with vegetable growing but growing for my own comsumption. Other 2 beds are planned (for now) to be Legume family & Squash family. I like planting edible flowers in with my veggies too. I am starting to plan ahead for when the garlic comes out and the bed is empty from July until ? (next rotation planting). Hate to have space not in use! I have a little greenhouse I can start things in as well. Any suggestions? What do you do with the bed once your garlic is harvested?? Thanks very much!!
Hi, Laura. I use it for fall peas sometimes, or salad stuff, or even another round of braising greens like chard and kale and such, or beets and storage carrots and so on. Many possibilities depending when your garlic harvest happens and when your first frost comes. Here’s a story about how I plan for “second harvests” as things finish and space opens up.
Hi! I recently bought a house in Weatherford, Texas and it is quickly becoming very obvious that the former owners were avid gardeners. I have what I believe to be garlic sprouting up in ma couple of my flower beds. Is there anyway to tell what kind without harvesting?
If it’s in flower beds, Genevieve, I wonder if it’s some other Allium (onion/garlic) relative. There are garlic-lookalike weeds as well as flowering bulbs (as well as edible ones). Got a photo to email (use the contact link at the bottom of the page).
I have a recipe for a quiche that calls for garlic scallions. Just what are these? I am familiar with scallions, of course, but have never heard of these. I have a bed of (hardneck) garlic which I planted last Fall…could I pull one of these to use in the recipe or do I need to look for some in the market?
Thanks for any information you can provide.
I would guess, Susanna, that they mean “green garlic,” garlic harvested before it bulbs up bigtime. I wrote about it here at this link when I first saw it in the market. I bet you could use the scapes, too.
I found your comments very informative. I have been growing garlic for the past 12 years and have enjoyed great success. Knowing when to harvest can be tricky and trying to explain it by when and how brown the leaves turn is difficult. For the most part I have found the second week in July works well here in the Albany area and while harvesting too early can cause storage problems I have found I would prefer to harvest a week early rather than a week late.
Quick question: I just pulled my first attempt at garlic (and they’re huge and gorgeous) and many of the tiny yellow/gold bulb-like things that were attached to the roots have stayed in the ground. Is this seed garlic and if so, do I need to water the mound where my garlic used to be for next year?
P.S. I’m in Texas, where the general vegetable-growing season started in March.
Hi, Dana. Are they bulbils (like tiny bulbs)? Some varieties produce those up top (so-called topset, after the flower ripens) and some below ground. Do they look like this example from elephant garlic (I had trouble finding good photos from other kinds online)? They won’t produce full-sized heads next year, but rather sort of one-clove “rounds” as the young bulbs are sometimes called. If you want to increase your stock you could plant these in an area of their own but I’d replant big, full-sized cloves for your 2014 crop.
Yes, that is exactly what we have. In fact, I’m pretty sure “elephant garlic” was the name of the seed garlic we bought. :O)
Thanks for your help! I guess I’ll leave ‘em in the ground and plant new seed garlic in another spot this fall.
Thanks for this article. I’ve been growing garlic for years and just a few years ago learned that I should cut the scapes. Now you have made me realize I’ve been waiting too long to harvest them, and possibly shortening their storage life. I will not make that mistake this season!
Hi, Jana. Glad to help, and I do love my garlic!