Garden Wisdom Blog — garlic

Garlic has been used as both food and medicine since at least the 25th century BC, around the time that the pyramids were being constructed at Giza, Egypt. In his Ecologues, Virgil writes all about garlic being consumed by ancient Greek and Roman soldiers, and it is was grown in England by the mid-16th century. This is curious given the modern English attitude toward garlic. As late as 1997, Dr. D.G. Hessayon warned in his bestselling book, The Vegetable & Herb Expert: If you are a beginner with garlic, you must use it very sparingly or you will be put...

How do you know when to harvest garlic bulbs and if they have matured to the right point for harvest? Each leaf on the above-ground garlic plant represents one potential papery wrapper around the mature bulb. Having well developed, fully intact wrapper layers means that your garlic will store longer and keep its wonderful aroma and flavour. The trick is to let the plants begin to die back, but harvest before all the leaves have turned brown. The top-most, green leaves extend down, into the soil, into the heart of each garlic bulb. When the lower two thirds of leaves have...

Garlic is an incredibly economical crop. Planted in the fall, it grows very slowly over winter, and is ready to harvest in late spring to early summer the following year. If it is dried and cured properly, it will stay ready to use for months — even into the following spring. So from a relatively small space, a lot can be harvested, and enjoyed over a very long period. The secret lies in how to cure garlic correctly for long term storage. Be as gentle as possible when first digging up your garlic crop. Bruises and cuts to the bulb...