Our First Garlic

We harvested our first crop of garlic tonight!

This garlic was planted in April as an experiment in spring planting. In my area, garlic is traditionally planted in early fall, but a dear friend had some beautiful hard neck garlic leftover from her fall planting and offered them to me for the experiment. In fact, she sent them to me in the mail...which I found such a generous thing to do! (Stay tuned for a collaborative post describing the differences we found in planting the same garlic in the fall versus in the spring.)

My first observation: These garlic bulbs are not very big. They are maybe 3/4 the size of the bulbs I planted from, even though I put off harvesting them for as long as I could. The photo at the top of the post shows my garlic, next to one of the original bulbs I still had laying around. By the time I harvested, most of the plants had several brown leaves, a sign I'd been told to look for.

When I got down and looked closer, one plant had actually turned all brown and was detached from the garlic altogether. I had to dig down to find that bulb. In the process, I found a couple of worms, YAY! I'm so happy that the worms are burrowing around in my raised beds!

I hung the garlic up in the garage to cure, and I love the way they look when I walk in there. :) Though the harvest is meager, I'm excited. Our first attempt at growing garlic (and in the spring) was successful, even if the bulbs are small!