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PunkRotten
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Location: Monterey, CA.

Any southerners harvest their garlic in June?

Hi,

I have two small rows of garlic that look like they are drying up. I have been watering them regularly but it doesn't seem to help. I know people usually harvest their garlic in July but I don't think mine will make it until then. I am thinking about harvesting in like 2 weeks from now. Think there will be a problem? I also have a mixture of softneck and hardneck varieties. They are split, on one side are the softnecks and the other side the hardnecks. Hardnecks have not grown as tall as the softnecks and they never produced any scapes. A few variety of hardneck never really came up. They produced just a tiny amount of green top and died back and never came back.

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applestar
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Joined: Thu May 01, 2008 7:21 pm
Location: Zone 6, NJ (3/M)4/E ~ 10/M(11/B)

Have you tried test digging one? You don't have to pull it up, just dig down and around the bulb and see how big and worth harvesting.

My understanding of harvest indicator is that 1/3 of the foliage have yellowed, and you want to harvest while someof the leaves are still green because otherwise, the bulbs begin to split and affect storage quality.

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hendi_alex
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Location: Central Sand Hills South Carolina

I usually harvest in June, but have already started harvesting this year. Am glad that I did. The bulbs are large and the outer covering of some was getting slick brown spots that would have likely gotten into the entire bulb if left in the ground longer. Part of this year's issue has been lots of rain. Garlic likes to have water withdrawn the last couple of weeks before bulbs are pulled. I'm harvesting a few bulbs each day now and will have all out of the ground before June.

Last year I waited on the June harvest date, and many bulbs had already gotten rot inside the cloves, and the general quality and storing ability were very poor. Was my worst harvest ever, because the bulbs were left in the ground too long.

In the future I'll view the harvest date as a more variable time, from early May until late June in this area.

imafan26
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Location: Hawaii, zone 12a 587 ft elev.

I planted my garlic and onions in September and they were ready to pull in May. If it has formed the bulb, the plants decide when they are done and the tops die down. Sometimes, my tops die down and I don't have bulbs either, but that is usually because I gave it too much nitrogen and it only made leaves and not much bulb.

gumbo2176
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Joined: Mon Jul 19, 2010 2:01 am
Location: New Orleans

I took my Elephant Garlic out last weekend. I tested one of the larger plants and the bulbs were beautiful, so I took the larger plants out first and worked my way down to the smaller plants. All of them had nicely formed bulbs. They are drying and have at least another week to go before I store them. I have about 75 plants I pulled of this variety with some almost as big as my fist.

The Red Chesnok I put in at the same time is not ready since the bulbs are not well formed and the plants are still quite green. I figure it will be another couple weeks or more before they form bulbs big enough to harvest. I have at least 125 of them in the raised bed.



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