Harvest is done!

All the garlic bulbs are out of the ground, hung and started to cure. At this point in time the successes and (sadly) challenges of this year’s season are now clear. Some varieties produced dependable beautiful garlic bulbs, while others…not so much. The “white” varieties seemed to fare much better this year than the “red” varieties.

The first to come out, Leningrad Medium, enjoyed very little loss and the garlic bulbs were consistent in quality and size. Hooray for that! This variety garlic is one of our most bountiful, and clearly enjoyed the climate in these parts.

The Yugoslavian porcelain also fared quite well, similarly to the Leningrad Medium. Another success!

Alas, the Kotsyn’s Red Russian garlic had a rough year. More than half of them are not a good enough quality to sell. While they shared the exact same growing conditions as the prior two several garlic bulbs suffered significant softness and decay to the skins and to the cloves themselves. It could be that they did not like the long cold wet spring and summer we’ve had thus far. Because of this, limited stock will be available this year. Each bulb had a small clove count, but “boy o boy” are the cloves themselves big. A culinary delight to be sure. If the climate next year is similar they will be harvested a week or two earlier than the rest.

The Khabar garic were also consistent in quality and size, with very little loss. They did not grow as large as the other varieties described thus far. The clove count was consistently three to four per garlic bulb. They are the most attractive variety with the deep red/purple color of their skins.

Northern Quebec garlic bulbs, like the first two, fared similarly well in terms of quality, size, and minimal loss.

Our house variety garlic suffered significant quality losses like the Red Russian garlic, it produced some impressively large specimens though. Like the Red Russian garlic, they will come out of the ground earlier next year than the other garlic bulb varieties.

The Chesnok red garlic bulbs, were similar to the first two. Of all the varieties, they have the highest clove count and are thus the most economical in terms of generating the most garlic bulbs from replanting.

From here the garlic bulbs will hang and remain attached to the plant for the next week or two to cure, in order to improve their long-term storage. This process will also dry and deepen their flavor, should one wish to eat them. Once of the plant part has completely yellowed, the garlic bulbs will be trimmed, sized, and ready for sale. Stay tuned for an email or Facebook notifying you when they are available!