Sixty More Planted

There has been serious disease on garlic bulbs recently.  Fellow blogger Daphne posted a process intended to clear the cloves of the disease.  An overnight soak in one quart of water containing one teaspoon of baking soda was followed by a rinse and peeling of the cloves.  Then a three minute soak in vodka was followed by a rinse and immediate planting.  We spent just over one hour carefully peeling sixty cloves.  Great tenderness is required to prevent injury to the cloves.  Scissors are used to cut a small nick at the top of each clove  staying clear of the clove flesh.  Using that as a starting point, the clove wrappers are removed.  On occasion blue smoke and street talk fills the air.

 The forty cloves are from a variety named for its source Helen.  Sadly, she has joined the great majority but she was a powerful positive influence on both of us.  Attitude is everything and her constant expression of positivity still has its effect on us.  The twenty cloves are Purple Stripe that we use as a spacer between our major varieties.

Just a short time ago we planted three beds with eight hundred ten cloves.  Now we plant one bed with two hundred twenty cloves.  We now have only five varieties compared with the more than thirty formerly planted.  That still sounds like way too much garlic for an elderly couple but we need next year's seed in addition to what we eat or give away.  At this point we have one hundred twenty planted with one hundred still to go.

Garlic exists in two distinct forms soft neck and hard neck.  Soft neck is preferred for braiding but it does not do well in our rather cold climate.  We have planted only hard neck for decades.  Our main crop consists of four different varieties all carrying local names.  These are all of the Porcelain type and display larger cloves but fewer cloves per bulb.  Helen's seed this year all came from bulbs having exactly four cloves.  Our marker variety is a Purple Stripe type featuring smaller cloves but beautiful purple bulbs.

So far this year we have encountered no brown spots indicating the presence of disease.  This is a first for us in many many years.  We did have eight plants that displayed ground level rot at harvest so our concern about illness persists.  The peel and soak is time consuming  and tedious but we will likely continue it for the remaining seed stock this year.  Planting next year's garden at this time of falling leaves and cold nights lifts our spirits.  We are well aware of what is coming our way but the first crop of 2021 is in the ground.

All In

Growing garlic has been an obsession here for more than two decades.  In our younger days we were able to eat garlic in quantity.  Freshly minced cloves lightly sauteed in olive oil then spread on French Peasant Bread under a generous coating of Parmesan cheese was a favorite way to eat our garlic.  Now that is only a pleasant memory.  There is no rational explanation for why we continue to plant 720 cloves each fall.

A recently departed friend gave us a few of cloves from her garden for this garlic.  We named it Helen's and will always have it growing here.  This year we planted fifty cloves but harvested only forty-one.  Recalling that late winter was bitter here, we were pleased that any of these plants grew following their hard freeze after several warm March days.

When to harvest has always been a troublesome question.  In the book Growing Great Garlic, Ron Engleman advocates harvest when only two or three leaves are still green.  His experience with garlic is limited to the West Coast.  When I followed his advise my garlic cloves were filled with mold.  He also stated that it was impossible to grow garlic in New York State because of our summer weather patterns.  Alabama boomers are common here in July when hot humid days frequently feature severe thunderstorms.  That excessive moisture falling on plants with mostly dead leaves is a guaranteed problem.  Most of my plants still carry many green leaves at harvest.  These green leaves maintain a water tight seal at ground level avoiding the growth of mold.  My bulbs are somewhat smaller but they remain free of disease.

Helen's garlic was the first harvested and has undergone two steps toward cured bulbs.  Elevated on a wire garden cage, the root mass was cut off the day after harvest.  The next day, the lowest solid green leaf is pulled clear removing all traces of garden soil.  Next the stems will be shortened so that the bulbs can hang downward instead of lying on top of the cage.  With that change in orientation much more garlic can cure on this cage.  As the cure nears completion several purple stripes will appear on the outer wrappers growing in the same line as the stalks.

Garlic Harvest 2017

Garlic harvest came early this year in response to the seemingly endless pattern of severe thunderstorms.  We usually harvest starting in the third week of July. Some brown leaves are nearly always in evidence before we begin to harvest.  All of the green in the above photo is most unusual.

We watch others that are successful and try to copy what works.  Our twice weekly trips to Norwich pass by a place where garlic grows within sight of the road.  This individual has grown garlic on the same ground for many years.  His crop always looks good despite the dangers of not rotating his garlic to new ground.  He also harvests his crop a week or two ahead of me.  So this year I followed his example and harvested my garlic early.  The early harvest sacrifices late growth for a cleaner crop.

Despite the early harvest we encountered some problems.  Bluish gray mold does not appear at the soil line of healthy plants.  These will go directly to the trash.  There are several possible causes of this trouble.  Our frequent heavy rains have kept everything wet.  I have read that it is impossible to grow decent garlic in upstate New York because of our typical pattern of July storms.  Just when the garlic should begin the process of drying down the rains come.

 Another possible cause of the trouble may be my planting pattern.  My beds are five feet wide by eighteen feet long.  Ten cloves are planted across the width of the bed.  This intensive planting pattern may limit air circulation in the middle of the bed.  Most of the moldy plants were located near the center.

The use of ground leaf mulch on garlic is not a common practice.  We try to apply the mulch in a thin uniform layer to discourage weed growth and prevent the soil from drying out.  The garlic remained nearly weed free and the excessive rainfall kept the soil moist.

This is our best harvest.  Helen gave us this seed and it has always performed great for us.  It was planted at the end of the bed surrounded on three sides by broken stone paths.  Fall winds did clear some of the leaf mulch from this planting.  Only three cloves of the fifty planted failed to produce usable plants.

As these bulbs cure their pure white color will become streaked with purple.  The dried stalks will be cut shorter and the plants will hang vertically for several weeks.  In mid October the cycle begins again with the selection of planting stock.  At this time we are still eating from last year's harvest.  The condition of those bulbs is excellent and one has to wonder what would happen if one year old cloves were planted.

Garlic Harvest 2016

Growing healthy garlic in New York State is recognized as being nearly impossible.  Garlic matures here early in early July and that month always features one series of thunder storms after another.  When the garlic should be drying down it is flooded repeatedly with sometimes heavy storms.  Each garlic leaf originates at the base of the bulb adjacent to the source of the roots.  It is tightly wound as it climbs the stem.  Where it leaves the stem to unfold as a flat leaf there is a weak point.  When the leaf is green and growing the joint is watertight.  As the leaf begins to weaken and die the seal leaks and water can enter the stem.  Once inside the water drains directly down into the inside of the bulb.  Wet bulbs appear tan colored rather than the white coloration that marks a recently harvested healthy bulb.  This year I harvested early when we were between storms.  Giving up one weeks growth seemed like a small price to pay for dry bulbs.

When first removed from the ground, garlic is a sorry sight.  Its huge root mass holds wet muddy soil and the lower leaves are brown smudged with black soil mold.  We spread the plants out on our wire cages where air freely moves above and below the drying garlic.  One day after digging we clean up the mess.  The root mass and its ball of mud is cut free with large scissors.  Moving up the stem past the dead dried leaves, we find the first supple green leaf.  It will cleanly pull free all the way to the base of the bulb.  Then we return the clean plant to the cage to continue curing.  At this point healthy bulbs are colored a solid white.  Purple blotches at that time indicates a bulb that was partially filled with water.  These bulbs are set aside for the food now bucket.  As the bulbs cure purple stripes appear.  At this time the bulbs are rather beautiful.

This planting of sixty cloves is marked Helen's.  We supplied Helen with her seed stock and she returned some of her harvest to us.  She had not previously grown garlic so her garden soil was free of the troublesome organisms that plague garlic growers.  Her sixty planted cloves returned fifty-six healthy bulbs to us.  This is the best return from the six different varieties we planted.

We know that the plants are curing nicely since our basement no longer smells like a salami factory.  Our next step will be to shorten the dried stalks so the garlic can be stored perpendicular to the floor.  Far more plants can be stored that way and we will once again be able to freely walk about.  That will be short lived since it will then be time to harvest the onions.

Helen's Garlic

Our garlic was harvested about two weeks ago.  That is early for us but since the past several weeks featured nearly daily rain we took the garlic of the second consecutive July day without rain.  Each garlic leaf begins at the base of the root cluster.  Wrapped tightly around the bulb and stem, it climbs until it pushes away and opens.  The joint where it leaves the stem is usually watertight but when the leaves begin to brown their grasp loosens and water can enter the stem.  Once inside, the water works its way down into the bulb.  Nasty undesirables begin to grow on wet garlic cloves holding trapped moisture.  An early dry harvest was the only way to go.

The picture shows one bulb with a diameter exceeding 2.5 inches.  We rarely grow bulbs of that size here.  We know that the seed stock for this garlic was a gift from dear friend Helen.  Age weakened memories make the source of her seed one year earlier unclear.  It is highly likely that we gave Helen the seed garlic that she grew for the first time.  One year of growing in her river bottom soil greatly improved her crop.  We planted twenty of her cloves and harvested twenty plants.  Hers is the only garlic that returned one hundred percent of healthy plants this year.  Helen's garlic has jumped to the top of our list.  Sixty cloves of garlic bearing her name will be planted here this October.  We intend to continue growing this garlic for all of our remaining years with a garden.  There are many different plants in our gardens that were given to us by friends and acquaintances.  Each interaction with these gift plants stirs pleasant memories of the persons that made these plants available to us.  Helen's garlic will always have a home with us.