We started harvesting our hardneck garlic on May 26 this year. One of the earliest harvests we have on record.

I’ve written lots on garlic in this blog, it’s one of the most sought-out topics. To cut to the chase, here’s my Garlic Recap.

Many of these are posts in my Alliums for the Month Series:

• Plant Garlic (Alliums for November)
• Free Trapped Garlic Shoots (Alliums for December)
• Plant garlic scallions from softneck varieties (Alliums for February)
• Garlic Scallions (Alliums for March and April)
• Garlic Scapes (Alliums for May)
• Harvesting Garlic (Alliums for June)
• Snip and Sort Garlic (Alliums for July)
• Move Stored Garlic (Alliums for September)
• And to sum it all up see My Garlic Slideshow

For a second opinion, see Margaret Roach (who grows in Massachusetts) in A Way to Garden

• The full how-to on growing is here
• Growing and storing a year of garlic
• The hardneck bonus: garlic scapes
• The Tricky Matter Of When  To Harvest Garlic
• Harvest and curing details

Of the many other posts I’ve written on garlic, that are not mentioned already, starting with harvest and moving round the calendar, there are:

Harvest

Garlic Harvest step by Step

Harvesting Garlic

Garlic Harvest

Garlic harvest, Intercropping, Summer lettuce,

Garlic harvest finished, fall crop planning, tomato bug heads-up

In September 2020, a reader asked:

In this blogpost https://www.sustainablemarketfarming.com/2013/07/05/snipping-sorting-and-storing-garlic/ you discuss that if a garlic bulb is larger or smaller than 2-2.5″, it should not be used for planting.  I’m wondering if you could discuss this in a blogpost perhaps.  I grow Polish White softneck and Turban hardneck, and I’ve been using the largest bulbs I can find for planting both.    I sort the Polish first though, and use only the biggest cloves from each softneck bulb (culls I dry or pickle).  I feel that with the Polish, over time I’ve been increasing my size, and people really like that to purchase.  I would be so very interested to read your reasons for the sizing.  I’m currently sorting for fall planting and was mulling this today and thought I would just ask to see if you might enlighten your readers.  Thanks.

My reply is:

Ah, the hazards of writing a brief article! You can plant any size garlic! Using large cloves from large bulbs usually gives the highest yields, and will, if repeated every year, steer your crop towards bigger bulbs. However, there is a limit: the very largest bulbs are often irregular, and have got large by growing lots of cloves, some of which are very small. As this is probably not what you want to steer towards, don’t use very large irregular bulbs as planting stock.

Yes, I totally agree that if your bulbs are now generally 2.5″ or larger, you are doing the right thing.

Drying and Curing, Snipping, Sorting and Storing

Garlic drying and curing methods

Snipping, Sorting and Storing Garlic 

Planting garlic

Sustainable Farming Practices slideshow, garlic planting, annual crop review

Garlic Planting and Freeing Trapped Shoots

Winter radishes, planting garlic.

Garlic scallions

Harbinger weeds of spring, and early garlic scallions

Garlic scapes

Garlic scapes! Three weeks to bulb harvest!

Too much rain! But garlic scapes to cheer us up.

Garlic scapes

Garlic scapes, upcoming events, hoophouse seed crops

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My DONATE button

I’ve added a donate button, for those who’d like to use it (via PayPal or credit card). We’re all staying home, not going to conferences or fairs. This is reducing my opportunities to collect speaker fees or sell books face to face.

More people are reading my blog (thank you!). There are thousands of new or returning gardeners across the country, aiming to get fresh air and exercise while usefully putting their time into providing food for their households. There are experienced professional growers trying hard to make their farming more efficient, and pivot to find ways to still earn a living and not lose the farm, due to loss of markets.

I put a lot of energy into providing useful info and practical details, and so if you are finding my posts helpful, and you can afford to, please consider clicking the pay-what-you-can button.

Together we’ll get through this difficult time and reach better days again.

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Birth of Assassin Bugs

Debbie Roos, an Agricultural Extension Agent at Chatham County Center, North Carolina Cooperative Extension and the founder of www.growingsmallfarms.org is a wonderful photographer,. She recently reposted this.

A couple of years ago I posted a series of photos on my Growing Small Farms website showing assassin bug nymphs emerging from their eggs. It was an amazing thing to witness and not something you see every day. Folks really enjoyed seeing the photos back then and since it’s spring and time for more to emerge I thought it would be fun to share the photos again now that so many people are spending so much time at home!

Be on the lookout for these egg clusters on your property and you may even get lucky and witness the birth of an assassin!

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Quick-Growing Vegetable Crops

Steve Albert has an informative website, Harvest to Table, and this post on quick-growing vegetables includes some warm weather crops like bush green beans and sweet corn. It includes names of fast-maturing varieties.

I wrote Fast Growing Vegetables in March, focusing on early spring crops. If you are still racing to catch up, or in need of more crops that yield quickly, see Harvest to Table.

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How to Fight Hornworms

On the Mother Earth News blog, my post How to Fight Hornworms has been very popular, and has led me to make an article for the Mother Earth Gardener magazine

This magazine is “a quarterly publication committed to giving you in-depth expertise to bolster your organic garden each and every season. Roll up your sleeves and learn soil-boosting strategies, permaculture practices, and more! Formerly known as Heirloom Gardener.”

16 things I know about growing tomatoes

From Margaret Roach at A WAY TO GARDEN

Margaret writes about home-grown seedlings, finding flavor, choosing between hybrids and open-pollinated varieties, saving seed, good tomato-hygiene, monitoring for pests and diseases, pruning, staking or otherwise supporting the plants, and dealing with the weather.