2024 Garlic Harvest is complete!

 

Another yearly milestone is in the books with the completion of garlic harvest 2024!  We are really happy with the quality and size of the bulbs.  For a crop that spends so much time growing and is so well-loved, the anticipation is high. 

 

You may have read previously that we were trialing woodchip mulch (as opposed to straw mulch) this year.  The hope was it would be less labour to apply and easier harvest, which it seems like we achieved.  Instead of rolling out bales by hand and distributing them with hay forks, we used our compost spreader to distribute them. 

 

Using woodchips also allowed us to use our undercutter.  The undercutter is a blade that attaches to the tractor and runs under the soil surface.  We usually use it to loosen carrots for bunching, but it worked perfectly for the garlic since we didn't have to worry about it getting congested with straw.  There were slightly more weeds than in past, especially bindweed, but we think the mulch could have been thicker.

 

The rain in days previous had also dried up enough to leave the soil soft enough for easy pulling, but not sticky and muddy like last year.  It was certainly very gratifying to be able to pull out beautiful, large bulbs so quickly.  We haven't decided what we are going to do for next years crop, but we are pretty pleased with the woodchips and thankful the risk worked out!

 

After pulling each garlic plant by hand, we bundle them together and bring them back to the barns hang up and cure.  Curing dries out the leaves surrounding the the cloves and helps them to withstand long-term storage.  With enough airflow and protection from rain they dry out without any more attention needed from us.  Then every week we just cut and clean the bulbs we need!