View Single Post
Old August 6, 2017   #11
svalli
Tomatovillian™
 
svalli's Avatar
 
Join Date: Feb 2006
Location: Vaasa, Finland, latitude N 63°
Posts: 838
Default

Our field is clay soil and it has been rainy, so I had to clean the mud away. I spread the garlic on the sloping bedrock on our yard and spray with garden hose. After that I let them dry couple or hours and then I remove all dead leaves and bad looking wrappers to inspect, if there are any onion fly maggots or mold. Our nights are already so cool that there is a lot of mist and moisture, so I do the drying and curing indoors. Even this may be against the normal procedures, I have found out that this is the best method in our normally wet and cool August.

The top row looks green, because I count that there is still at least 4 mostly green leaves on the garlic, when I start to harvest, so that there will be 4 good wrappers on the bulbs for storage. I could have left some in field for couple of more days, but I do get to the field now only during weekends, when my DH's vacation ends and I can't yet drive so long trip alone. I had my right shoulder operated four weeks ago and I have still 6 weeks of medical leave. It would be nice to use all this time gardening and harvesting but I can use just my left hand for all the heavy work and that limits what I can do alone.

Sari
__________________
"I only want to live in peace, plant potatoes and dream."
- Moomin-troll by Tove Jansson
svalli is offline   Reply With Quote