When to Harvest Garlic and How to Cure and Store It

Count the green leaves, do not wait for the tops to fall over

Garlic is ready when roughly the bottom third of the leaves have gone brown and five or six leaves at the top are still green. Every green leaf is one intact wrapper layer around the bulb, and those wrappers are what keep it in storage. Wait until the whole plant has browned off, the way you would with onions, and you get a big bulb with no wrappers left, which splits on lifting and rots within weeks.

Lift too early instead and the cloves have not divided fully. The bulb feels soft, the wrappers are thick and damp, and it never cures properly. The window between too early and too late is about ten days, so once the lower leaves start browning, check every two or three days.

Dig a test bulb before you commit the row

Leaves are a guide, not a measurement. Once the bottom leaves start browning, lift one plant from the middle of the row and look at it. You want a bulb with clearly defined cloves visible as ridges through the skin, and at least two or three intact papery wrappers over them. If the outside is smooth and undivided, put the row back on hold for a week.

Lift with a fork, not by pulling. Garlic necks snap easily at this stage, and a bulb without its stem cannot be hung to cure and bruises far more easily. Push the fork in four to six inches (10 to 15 cm) away from the plant, lever the soil upwards, and lift the plant out of the loosened ground by hand.

1. Lift one bulb from the middle of the row Not from the end. End plants get more light and moisture and mature several days ahead of the rest of the row, which will mislead you.
2. Check the cloves through the skin Rub the soil off and look for clove divisions showing as ridges. Smooth and round means it needs longer.
3. Count the intact wrappers Peel one layer back. Three or more clean papery wrappers under it means good storage life ahead.
4. Harvest on a dry day Lift when the soil is dry, ideally after two or three dry days. Bulbs lifted from wet ground come up caked in mud and cure poorly.

Do not wash the bulbs. Water gets under the wrappers and drives rot in storage. Let the soil dry on them and brush it off once they are cured.

Curing is three to four weeks in shade and moving air

Curing dries the neck and the outer wrappers into a sealed skin, and it is the difference between garlic that keeps for two months and garlic that keeps for eight. Hang the plants in bunches of six to ten, or lay them on a rack in a single layer, somewhere shaded, dry and well ventilated. A shed with the door open, a covered porch or a carport all work.

Keep them out of direct sun. Sun scalds the bulbs, bleaches the wrappers and cooks the cloves inside, and a scalded bulb will not store. A fan on low in a still shed makes a real difference, since moving air matters more than heat. Aim for a temperature between 68 and 86F (20 to 30C) with low humidity.

1. Leave the tops and roots on Do not trim anything at first. The bulb draws moisture out of the leaves as it cures, and the leaves are what you hang it by.
2. Hang or rack in a single layer Bundle six to ten plants and hang them, or spread them on mesh so air reaches all sides. Piled bulbs rot in the middle of the pile.
3. Keep it shaded and moving Full shade, dry, with air moving through. Never leave bulbs in the sun to dry, whatever you have seen done with onions.
4. Test the neck after three weeks Pinch the neck just above the bulb. It should be dry, papery and hard, with no give or moisture at all. If it is still soft, give it another week.

Trimming and storing the cured crop

Once the necks are hard, cut the stems to about an inch (2.5 cm) above the bulb and trim the roots close to the basal plate without cutting into it. Brush off the loose dirt and take off the outermost wrapper if it is stained, but stop there: peeling down to clean white skin removes the layers that protect the bulb.

Store in mesh bags, open baskets or braids somewhere cool, dark and dry, at 50 to 60F (10 to 15C) with moderate humidity. Do not store in the fridge, because the cold range around 40F (4C) is exactly the signal that tells a clove to start sprouting. Do not use sealed containers or plastic bags either. Well cured hardneck garlic keeps four to six months, softneck six to nine.

Set aside your planting stock and record the numbers

Before anything goes to the kitchen, pick out the largest, cleanest, best shaped bulbs and set them aside for autumn planting. You need roughly one bulb for every six to ten cloves you intend to plant. Store them in exactly the same conditions as the eating garlic and do not split them until planting day. Selecting your biggest bulbs every year is how a garlic strain gets steadily better suited to your ground.

Weigh the crop and write the numbers down: harvest date, total weight, average bulb weight, how many were split or rotten, and how the ends of the row compared with the middle. Set those against your planting notes and the picture becomes clear fast. Small bulbs across the board usually means late planting or tight spacing. Split wrappers means you harvested late. Thick soft necks means nitrogen went on too late in spring.

1. Reserve the best bulbs first Choose the biggest and cleanest for replanting before you start eating the crop, or the best ones will quietly disappear into the kitchen.
2. Weigh and count Record total weight, bulb count and average weight. One number per season, compared year to year, tells you whether your changes are working.
3. Note the losses and why Count split, rotten and undersized bulbs separately and note where in the row they were. Losses clustered at one end normally point to drainage.