Harvesting garlics

This is our second year growing garlic. Last year, we harvested the goodies on July 15. This year, it was on July 20. Gardening advice says that garlics are ready to be harvested when half of the green have turned yellow (ratio varies depending on who gives the advice). Thus I have a hard time deciding when is the time to pull them out.

The weather has been dry and hot for weeks now. We decided to pull the garlics out today. The variety with the smaller bulbs were pulled two weeks ago. They have red outer skin. Today, we pulled those bulbs grown from the garlics we grew from last year. They are hard neck with white skin (note to myself: remember to write down the name of the variety).

There are a total of about 100 heads, including a dozen that we planted in between the flower bed...40 bulbs short from last year. (I planted really close to one another last year though)

We tied up 10 bulbs as a bundle and hang them under the patio deck for curing.

It took quite a while to remove the outer layer and clean up the dirt. But the process was very satisfying.

Brown spots were found on some of the garlics last year. They were found on many of the garlics this year. However, none were found from the garlics that were grown in the flower bed. Oh, just one more pic...a cute twin garlic.