I have now all garlic harvested and cleaned for drying and curing. Field is the best teacher and I have learned a lot this season.
- Hardnecks are the way to go this far north. Some softnecks bolted in the stem, which is quite normal, but some made a real scape and those had really small bulbs.
- Thick mulch is essential for winter protection. We did not have a thick snow cover, but thanks to the mulch, this time winter losses were minimal.
- I should plant most in the fall and minimize the amount for spring planting for bulbils and varieties, which I have only few cloves.
- Bed preparation on the field should start early in the fall, so that it is ready in case weather gets cold or very rainy early.
- Moving garlic and onions to an other field got rid of onion fly maggots, so from now on I will have crop rotation with greater distance.
- Every year is different, so what works one year may not the next. It is just best to try to be well prepared and not to give up in case of some setbacks.
This year I am drying the garlic in the garage with fan heaters blowing on them. Nights here get so cool, that outdoor drying does not work. Two years ago I got some kind of fungus gnat larvae ruining a lot of the garlic in storage, since I hung them to dry outdoors for couple of weeks and the gnats were flying around the garlic. I did not realize that time why those tiny flies were buzzing around the garlic hanging on our back porch, until later in storage I found really tiny orange larvae inside the garlic wrappers and quite many cloves were rotting. Last year I hung the garlic to dry in the house, but it smelled a bit in the beginning and family complained a bit. Now I asked my husband to make space in the garage, so I could hang the garlic there for few weeks to dry.
Sari