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Follow these simple steps to harvest, cure, and store your garlic and you’ll be enjoying it right through next spring (when you can plant whatever’s left for spring garlic!).
In my humble opinion, garlic is one of the best things we grow. It is easy to plant, it miraculously transforms from one clove to a full head, and if properly dried and cured it can last through the whole winter.
In addition, if you grow enough garlic it is easy to re-seed, which means you could buy seed garlic once and never have to buy it again! (check out our article on growing enough garlic for a year!)
when stalks have started to brown.
Step 1: Harvesting Garlic
Garlic is ready to harvest when the bottom third of the stalks have started to turn from green to yellow or brown. You can always pull one or two heads to make sure it is ready before harvesting your whole crop.
The ideal time to harvest is after you’ve had a bit of rain, so that the soil is a a little bit looser and the heads will pull up more easily.
To harvest garlic, grip the greens as close to the surface soil as you can and gently but firmly pull the full garlic head out. Be careful to keep the garlic greens attached. If the garlic head does not come easily, use a large shovel to carefully dig down around the garlic and prop up the soil to loosen it and pull out the garlic heads.
If you have grown different varieties of garlic, make sure to keep the harvest separated into sections and to label the containers. You might be transferring your garlic a few times so keep track of those labels carefully if you want to keep your varieties separate from each other. We find that the plastic trays that come from the plant store are great for harvesting garlic because they have built in ventilation.
Step 2: Drying Garlic
If our garlic is somewhat moist when we harvest it, we like to leave it out to dry in the sun to get the initial moisture off before moving it to its next location. Typically, this means we lay our garlic out on our deck or picnic table in a single row and let it sit in the sun for the day. We bring it in at night to start sorting it and getting it ready to cure.
Step 2: Sorting & Bunching Garlic
Before getting your garlic to its curing place, you have a chance to sort through it to decide which heads will be used for which purposes. We look for any heads that have grown large enough to start to separate and save those for seed garlic (which you’ll plant this fall!). We also separate the garlic into categories – garlic to eat ourselves; garlic to give to our farm share; and garlic to sell.
Whatever categories you need, this is a great time to organize. You can tie the garlic into bunches (we like to do 5 heads per bunch but you can do as many as 10). If necessary, label your garlic bunches so you don’t lose track of which bundle is which type.
If you have grown any soft-necked garlic that can be braided, separate that out as well.
Step 4: Curing Garlic
Once you have sorted your garlic and collected it into bunches, you’ll want to find a good place for it to cure. The ideal location to cure garlic is cool, shady, and dry and gets good air ventilation.
We sometimes use our screened-in porch, but if the weather is going to be too hot and sunny, we use our basement. If the basement feels damp, we set up our dehumidifier and aim a fan over the garlic to ensure it gets dry.
At this point, it is a good idea to hang your garlic for good air circulation. That said, we have also done just fine laying the garlic out in a single layer on a large surface (like our ping pong table).
Step 5: Preparing Garlic for Storage
Once the tops of your garlic are completely brown and dried out, you can prepare your garlic for long term storage. First, brush the remaining dirt off of the garlic heads and give the roots on the bottom a nice short trim. Then, if you grew hard-neck varieties you can cut the stem off. You’ll end up with a garlic head like you would see in the store.
It is also ok to trim the roots and clean the garlic heads, then just leave them on the stems to hang for storage. If you have soft-neck varieties you’ll want to leave the stems anyway to do a nice braided garlic for storage (which we have yet to perfect!).
Step 6: Storing Garlic
Now it’s time to get that garlic to its fall/winter/spring storage spot. You can leave garlic hanging in a nice dark, dry place or you can place the heads in mesh bags to store. The room should be about 40-50 degrees. Garlic should keep for about 6 months, maybe longer. If your garlic starts to sprout in the spring the great news is that you can plant those sprouting cloves to grow spring garlic!
Love garlic? Check out our other helpful articles on growing and preserving garlic on your homestead!
- How to Grow a Year-Round Supply of Garlic
- How to Make Garlic Powder
- How to Roast Garlic for Cooking & Storage
Carrie Williams Howe is an educational leader by day and an aspiring homesteader by night and weekend. She lives on a small homestead in Vermont with her husband, two children, and a rambunctious border collie. She blogs about her family's homestead life at The Happy Hive.
