Debra Manskey

One of the great things about keeping a blog is being able to compare harvests over time. And one crop that usually grows really well for me is garlic. We use it a lot so I grow plenty, and this year I thought with three beds, I might have enough to see our household through the year. And in the nearly eight years I’ve been living here I’ve only ever had a garlic crop fail twice, once about five years ago and this year.

My maincrop variety (like so many great gardening stories) started out with a few cloves someone gave me. I think it was a standard Tasmanian purple skin (but who knows?) and it keeps quite well for six or seven months. Over the years I’ve built up my stocks, only keeping the best and biggest cloves to replant the following autumn. And I carefully rotate beds, mulch them well and leave them to get on with it. Generally, there’s not a lot to do except weeding – they don’t like competition.

I carefully checked a couple that were starting to die back a few weeks ago, and was shocked to see as I eased the soil back that there was very little bulb development. Also, they were slow to get started and we had a lot of rain – so much that it looks like 30-40% rotted in the ground. I’ve heard from friends that I’m not the only one to have problems this year – but I don’t know if that makes me feel better or more concerned!

Harvesting garlic as I’ve said before, is something of an arcane art. Too early and the heads aren’t properly developed, but leave it too late and bulbs will split and don’t keep. After some very warm weather and a thunderstorm last week, I decided it was time to pull the worst affected bed.

It was pretty “meh” compared to previous harvests but I suppose is better than none at all.

Part of this year’s poor garlic harvest

The next bed doesn’t seem to be as bad, the plants seem stronger and stems thicker, but it’s dying back and will need to come out in the next week or so.

The final bed looks like this season’s winner, all named varieties I bought from a local specialist grower, specifically for their long keeping qualities – planted later and correspondingly will be harvested later. And they’re looking very good – thanks Letetia 🙂 I think I might be changing my maincrop variety next year!

It was warm out in the yard today, a really beautiful spring day, and while I took a break in the shade of the plum tree, I found some very well formed reminders that summer’s just around the corner ❤

Prune plums forming on the tree

Have a great Saturday everyone and see you tomorrow 🙂