Slightly early garlic harvest, what are the consequences?

[sprtsguy76]

I've pulled up a dozed bulbs of some fairly early varieties, California Early and I forget the other one right now. They are filled out nicely but look like they could have used maybe another week or two. I'm new to growing garlic but my indicator was the lower leaves were really dying off. And the flower pods on some of them were out and forming. Thoughts? Thanks.

Damon

[davespitzer]

If the flower stalks are just coming out you shouldn't be losing leaves yet. I'm in California also, east of you in the Sierra foothills, and my garlic is really weird this year. No flower stalks at all on a couple of hundred plants and small bulbs, mostly with no cloves (just one big bulb). Garlic evolved (so I've read) in harsh mountainous terrain in southern Asia, and it supposedly has various survival strategies. I assume that what I've been seeing is one such strategy, although why it is happening is a mystery to me. Must be the weather, or gremlins, or some such.
The advice I've been given is to harvest when the plant has 4-6 green leaves left, and to cure it in a dark, dry, airy place with the leaves and roots still attached. In the past that has worked well for me. However, with the wet weather I haven't wanted to pull the plants because you want them to be dry for a couple of weeks before harvest. That may not be an option if this rain keeps up, though.
Good luck with your crop. Dave

[Suze]

The possible consequence is that if they'd been left in a bit longer, the bulbs might have gotten a little bigger. However, a possible upside is that you'll likely have a lot of wrapper (as more and more leaves die, especially the inner ones - you tend to lose wrapper layers) and so they might store a little longer - hard to say.

[Suze]

Originally Posted by davespitzer

If the flower stalks are just coming out you shouldn't be losing leaves yet.

I sometimes have this happen. Texas is not the best place to grow garlic, though - and if the plants get stressed, I've found I sometimes get scapes before any leaves start to die back.

This year - it happened with a few of my varieties. I just remove the scapes before they flower out, though.

[davespitzer]

Suze- I've been told to remove the scape from garlic to increase bulb size, and I wonder if onions work the same way. I'm growing OP red torpedo onions (from sets) for the first time and want to save seed, so I left the scape on about 30 of my largest bulbs. Do you think that will adversely affect the bulbs? Dave

[davespitzer]

Just got a reply from MJC on another allium thread- he advised that letting them go to seed will reduce the quality of the bulb. Guess I have to choose- seed or food, not both! I will try to compromise and keep only a few for seed. They sure are pretty onions! Dave

[Suze]

Dave, I've never grown torpedo onions, and don't know much about them. I'm no onion expert, but my understanding is if you let onions flower, it can affect the bulb storage. This is particularly important for some of the larger bulb type onions we tend to grow here in Texas, like grano / 1015 types.

I never let my onions go to seed, and remove any scapes as soon as I see them.

30 sounds like a lot to let maybe go to seed - unless you just want to save a whole lot of seed. Maybe go ahead and cut a few off.

[TomNJ]

Letting onions go to seed will reduce the storage life of the onion by a lot, so you want to eat or freeze these first.

The number of green leaves for garlic at harvest depends on what you plan to do with them. Each leaf is an extension of a wrapper around the bulb, so as a leaf dies you lose a layer of wrapper. If you are growing garlic commercially, you want a lot of wrapper layers (5-6 green leaves) to compensate for loses of wrapper in cleaning, handling, shipping, and retail storage. If you are growing for personal use and handling reasonably carefully, three green leaves is fine.

Also, keep in mind that "green leaves" are not so black & white (sorry, couldn't resist!). Many upper leaves are partially yellow/brown and partially green. I count a half green leaf as green since the the bottom end of the leaf (wrapper) is still alive.

And for the largest bulbs, snap off the scapes before they uncurl. I pick mine when they are about 12-18" as they are still succulent at this stage and are very delicious when stir fried or grilled. Two delicious and very different crops from one plant!

TomNJ

[tjg911]

up here i always cut the scape when it has made 1 full curl or just abouts. doing so extends the storage of the bulb, probably keeps the flavor better too. digging too soon will give you smaller bulbs but waiting too long can cause the cloves to burst the wrapper which is bad for storage. and seeds? why do you want seeds? you plant the cloves from the bulb to grow garlic not the seeds. the seeds that form in the bubils (sp ?) are going to take a few years to produce anything of good size. they don't even taste good.

tom

[davespitzer]

Thanks for the timely advice! I reduced the number of onions for seed down to 9, hopefully enough to assure pollination. If onions are like chives I should have enough seed to start some in the fall for overwintering, hoping for an early crop.
I may have to pull my garlic before it's completely ready, because there seems to be a new crop of young gophers looking for an easy meal. The late rains are delaying the dry-down of leaves, still have 7 or 8 (mostly) green ones on most plants. Most years I would be harvesting now. Dave

[tjg911]

gophers would eat garlic? i thought garlic and onions were safe from any animals!

[davespitzer]

Gophers love garlic and onions. I often find them (gophers) by finding a few wilting leaves sticking out of the ground about 6 inches lower than they should be. I've lost about 15% of my crop this year to the little buggers.
I finally gave up on the weather and pulled my entire garlic crop. The leaves were yellowing and starting to show spots and the bulbs are showing mold on the outside. The ground was wet and more rain coming, so I figured better safe than sorry. Got 'em all drying in a shady porch. They look better than I thought they would- some are decent sized and salable. Next year I will try some other varieties beside chesnock red, and I'll plan for larger losses to the neighbors (critters.) Dave

[fortyonenorth]

I used to snip my scapes early, but Ron Engeland of Filaree Farms related a story about a west coast farmer who had lost much of his seed garlic to virus. In an attempt to replenish his stock he allowed one field to fully mature and set bulblets. That garlic had somewhat smaller heads (as expected) but stored much better than those in which the scapes were cut early. Follow up experiments in subsequent years showed the same thing. Based on this (in a compromise between head size and storage life) I now remove the scapes later - after the scape has uncurled and stood straight up.

[tjg911]

so have you let your scapes stand straight up before cutting them off and if so do you see a longer storage life? i'd sacrifice size for storage.

[fortyonenorth]

This will be my second year following this method. But, until this year, I haven't grown enough garlic to worry about storage - meaning, it's usually gone before storage life becomes an issue. I'm growing a lot this year, so I'll be able to make a better judgement a year from now.