Is it safe to eat this garlic? What should I do?

[SLC]

Long story short - I planted garlic last spring for a fall harvest, but it got overtaken by the broccoli and the garlic tops quickly died off. I thought it was dead, but it came up again this spring as bunches. I tried to dig some up and transplant single plants.

Well now, the garlic plants are almost dead...most of the plants died off and weeds have taken over and the rest of the plants look like this (click to enlarge):

But I dug this one up and it's only like 1 1/4 in. wide and no skin has really formed on it. When I dug it up, one of the cloves even fell off.

Can I still eat it? Or is it no good under-formed? Or, should I just wash it off and stick it in the fridge?

I assume the rest of what's underground looks like this - what should I do with it? Meaning, should I try to "cure" it?

Please let me know what my next steps should be with garlic like this because I really don't know. I've never even grown garlic before, so I really don't know.....Please help. I appreciate your help!

[applestar]

You can eat it. Just a bit more tedious to clean and prep if paper-skin forms in between. It’s likely not to cure/store very well, so you might consider slicing, dehydrating, and grinding — I use coffee grinder dedicated to spices. Or make pesto, etc.

If some of these are rounds and not separated into cloves, you could also plant these this fall and next year, they should make full sized bulbs with separate cloves.

[SLC]

Will it taste okay? I see now that it does have a very thin layer of "skin" that was forming.

Should I dig it all up now?

Should I wash it now or as needed?

How should I store it? In the fridge? Whole?

[applestar]

Only wash the ones you intend to use right away. It’s best to dig them when soil is dry-ish and keep them dry — in fact regular garlic harvesting and processing involves getting the outside of the bulbs dry as quickly as possible. Any moisture trapped between the cloves could cause them to get moldy. Dig when ground is dry, before it rains or you water the garden, leave out elevated in sun for a couple of hours then knock off/brush off clumps of soil.

I harvest in single layer in webtrays, then put them on something like milk crates (I actually have a bread crate/tray.)

Allow to dry with tops on in good airflow in shade/protected from rain. - You can tie them up and hang them if you want.
— it’s too humid outside here — I actually bring inside in air conditioned room and put oscillating fan on them.

Once tops have yellowed and dried, I cut them off and the hard base of the bulb with roots, and peel off the outermost paper to remove dried on soil/dirt. Put in pantry. I put ones I intend to use soon in net bag, but best cured ones go in a recycled oatmeal box or paper bag so the cloves don’t dry up too quickly.

DO NOT STORE GARLIC IN THE REFRIGERATOR (except to pre-chill them for planting if you live where it doesn’t get cold enough). You can freeze cleaned peeled cloves.

[!potatoes!]

It will taste fine. It's actually not that the skin has just barely formed, it's that the garlic was harvested late and outer skins have rotted off. Garlic is usually harvested when there are still green leaves on the plant, and some of the outer tissues (still living when pulled) turn to 'skins' as they cure.

[SLC]

I wonder why the bulbs barely grew....maybe cuz it's leftover from last spring (2017)?

I am in Connecticut and we have been in this crazy weather pattern the past like month where it's really hot and humid and rains like every day, and it's going to rain again today and all day tomorrow, then possibly one dry day on Sunday and then back to the same next week. I haven't even needed to water the garden myself since like mid June. Nor have I been able to fertilize.

So I guess I can dig up when I can...although the ground is saturated with no hope for drying out...and just bring it indoors to dry out and keep in a paper bag.

Thank you so much for all of your knowledge and help!!!! I really appreciate it!

I'll be planting new garlic in the fall and hopefully it works out for next year!

[webmaster]

Did you cut the flowers off in spring?

[SLC]

Did you cut the flowers off in spring?

Yes - I cut all the scapes except one..maybe 2 cuz I wanted to see what would happen. I cut it down as far as I could. They did smell wonderfully garlicky!

[webmaster]

Well,
Seems to me that in New England the garlic tends to grow small but powerful. I buy garlic from SE Connecticut farmstands when I'm down there and it's small but juicy and flavorful. My favorite kind of garlic.

Maybe has something to do with the terroir?

My garlic here in Massachusetts comes out smaller than the garlic that grows in Mexico, Spain and Gilroy, California. I suspect it may have something to do with the amount of sun (but I'm no expert).

It could be the varieties but I don't think it's a coincidence that garlic grows big in desert levels of sun with lots of water.

Yet the bigger garlic from those regions don't pack the punch and flavor of the smaller garlic that grows locally to me.

We have a garlic festival out here in Western Mass and all the garlic is on the small side but powerful and juicy.

[Vanisle_BC]

Last fall I had a couple of leftover garlic bulbs that had started to go soft & sprout in the kitchen; planted them whole to see what would result. Here's a photo of what I got from them this summer: Not large bulbs but worth using in the kitchen or splitting to plant in the fall.

By the way my careful experiments suggest there's no correlation between the size of clove that I plant, and the size of bulb I will harvest.