Harvest Considerations for Garlic
Crystal Stewart-Courtens, Extension Vegetable Specialist
Eastern New York Commercial Horticulture
![Harvest Considerations for Garlic](https://rvpadmin.cce.cornell.edu/images/submission/image88.jpg)
If leaves aren't the best indicator of maturity, how else can you tell? The best indicator is how the cloves are filling the wrapper leaves. Take a couple of average looking plants from each variety, and cut them in half perpendicular to the stem so that you are cutting through all of the cloves. Each clove should be tight in its wrapper leaves. If there is any give when you squeeze the bulb, or the wrapper leaves seem a little loose around the cloves the garlic will continue to expand for a little while longer (figure 1). A few of the outer wrapper leaves will probably be breaking down. That is normal.
You can also look at the shape of each clove. Cloves start out being more or less round, and expand to more of a wedge shape (figure 1). As garlic reaches full maturity, the cloves will pull very slightly away from the scape on hardneck varieties.
If you let the garlic stay in the ground too long, too many wrapper leaves will decay and the cloves will continue to expand until the garlic actually splits open. At this point the garlic becomes virtually unmarketable. Make sure that you check your garlic every few days, especially as we move into another warm stretch of weather.
As you are harvesting, keep in mind that you want to reduce the amount of water that you bring into your drying area and you want to avoid scalding your garlic during harvest. If you can harvest early in the morning (before 11 or so, depending on how hot the day is) on a dry day, then clean in the shade during the afternoon, you should have the best results possible. Allowing garlic to sit out in the field exposed to the sun can result in sun scalding, which will cause affected cloves to break down. If you have to harvest in wet weather try to remove as much mud as possible and to get any foliage you leave on the plant as dry as possible before moving it into the curing area. The higher the relative humidity is in your curing area, the slower the garlic will dry down. The slower the garlic dries, the more potential there is for disease. Dry garlic means lower relative humidity right from the start!
![more crops](images/more_crops_left_sm.gif)
![more crops](images/more_crops_right_sm,.gif)
Upcoming Events
Niagara Region Vegetable Meeting
![Event Offers DEC Credits](../images/dec_credits.gif)
August 14, 2024
Clarence Center, NY
We'll start this meeting off at Root Down Farm to hear late season disease management updates in peppers and cole crops, plus current best management practices to limit fungicide resistance. Potato variety recommendations and disease control questions in potatoes will be addressed.
Then we'll head to Kreher's beet field to view and discuss alternative weed control technologies. The beet field is an on-farm demonstration of various flame weeding protocols in comparison with stacked tool cultivation equipment. One or two weeding robots will be on-hand for live demonstrations and discussion of the technology's current abilities and future potential. We'll also cover industry updates and a review of late summer disease management in squash.
2.0 DEC credits will be available in categories 23, 1a, and 10.
2024 Chipping Potato Twilight Meeting
![Event Offers DEC Credits](../images/dec_credits.gif)
August 20, 2024
Dansville, NY
Join us for a brief, on-farm meeting including insect pest updates and viewing of the chipping potato variety trial. 1.0 DEC credits in categories 10, 1a, and 23 will be offered. Dinner follows!