Garlic Harvest 2025
One big project we checked off the list this week was completing our garlic harvest. Not only is it a pretty big job but also it’s somewhat time sensitive. Leave the garlic out in the field too long and the cloves can start to split apart which negatively affects shelf life.
A grimace for the weeds. You can see at least part of a row of garlic over my left shoulder though. :-/
Overall, we’re happy with our garlic harvest this season. It’s not our biggest and best crop ever and our weed management could have been better but what we pulled up looks nice and tastes amazing. When you consider that our seed stock was grown last year in what was some of the worst weather we’ve ever seen and then add to that a pretty wet 2025 the harvest we got is exceptional. Intense rainfall for two seasons and we’re still getting a good harvest. We’re proud of that.
Pretty good sized garlic bulbs but they seem smaller on average than previous years.
In previous years we’ve used a tool pulled by our tractor called a bed lifter dig underneath the garlic and loosen the soil so we can pull the garlic up easily. We use this tool on our carrots too. But this year we had two problems using that tool. First, the weeds got out of control in our garlic patch so we couldn’t see the rows from the tractor seat. The second problem was that our rows were spaced just a little too far apart. We ended up damaging a few garlic bulbs when we attempted to use the bed lifted.
What did we do instead? Luckily the soil was both damp enough and loose enough that we were able to pull up the garlic by hand without too much effort. Don’t get me wrong, it was difficult and harder than using the lifter but it was doable. We had a very small percentage where the stem broke leaving the garlic bulb in the ground. It might seem like this is a big bummer but there’s a really good chance the garlic bulbs left in the ground will regrow next season for early spring “green garlic.”
Now we wait about 2 weeks for the garlic to cure. That is, dry down the out layers that will form a protective seal and greatly improve shelf life of the garlic. Once curing is complete we’ll have plenty of garlic for CSA members, online orders and our farmers market stand!
Garlic set up to cure!