the weather was beautiful today, very low humidity and temps in the low 70's so i decided to dig the garlic rather than doing it a week later surely in 88 degrees with a dew point of 66 to 73.

some varieties appeared to being just about ready to be dug while some varieties looked like they were ok to keep growing for another 10-12 days.

i started at the end of the bed where the german white was. i dug the 1st and the bulb was huge! so i dug all 3 rows of german white. some bulbs were large but none larger than the 1st. 1 bulb had some cloves out of the paper wrapper. so 23 good, 1 bad.

the korean red was next in the bed and looked to be ready to dig as the lower half of the plants were drying up. again the 1st bulb was huge none of the others were as big. korean red doesn't get that big and most bulbs were average to slightly larger than i have grown in the past. the odd thing is that 8 bulbs are pure white while the rest are red. now i wonder how there are 8 white bulbs? believe me i am extremely careful when digging, drying, storing and selecting cloves to plant. i label everything and keep a map in the house of what is what whether in the shed drying or when planting. i keep each variety in a separate labeled bag when selecting cloves to be planted. i store them with a fool proof labeling system in the basement. believe me i am totally anal about this so i can't imagine i mixed any cloves up. i can't recall if the bulbs i selected those cloves from were white but since i was so surprised that i have to think not. anyway, 24 good bulbs and i'll only plant cloves from the red bulbs. i'd think that korean red should have a reddish wrapper so i have to think i mixed some of these up, if so it was last year's planting as i used my planting guide incorrectly so i may have thought some plants were korean red when they were german something.

next was german red. what a waste of space! very small bulbs and i will not plant this variety again even tho i have grown it now for 3 years. the bulbs are 1/2 the size of what i expected and i did not expect huge bulbs. 24 good bulbs.

now here's where i may have been too hasty. i have 2 different groups of music. i group is my music from seed i have grown for 3 years, the other is from a local organic farmer. i called it gauger's music as his last name is gauger. i wanted to see the size and taste difference between his music and mine so i bought $25 of his garlic last august. a friend bought into his csa and his music had reddish tints on the wrapper and the bulbs were big even for music. i can't remember now if any of my gauger's music bulbs have red on them.

gauger's music plants' had just 1 set of lower leaves dying and the plants looked like they need another 10 to 12 days. but it was dry and cool and i had it in my head to dig it all up so i started to dig. i got 1/2 way thru and stopped to leave the other 1/2 to grow. i dug 33 plants and 32 were good, 1 was bad. some pretty good sized bulbs but some not so big, this is why i think the plant's appearance said they needed more time.

i then looked at my music and these plants looked significantly drier. where gauger's music stalks are still green, my music plants have their stalks showing yellows and lower leaves are dying off so i decided to dig all of my music. this area of the bed gets just a little less sun and the bulbs were smaller than i expected and i'm sure it is less sun. music bulbs are usually pretty good sized and while some were some were a bit small. 65 good 2 bad.

so i have about 170 bulbs hanging in the shed and about another 33 still in the garden, i wished i left all of gauger's music. but some of gauger's and some of my music had burst bulbs and this is the concern because that lessens storage capicity. the cloves were not covered by the paper wrapper and they were open and apart from the other side that was enclosed by the paper. some big cloves so i may use them for seed.

all in all, i'm happy with the results. i have to find a replacement for german red. i may go back to growing nootka rose, a softneck. i have 2 or 3 bulbs of nootka rose still left and they are still as hard as a rock! no green shoots coming out of the cloves tho some cloves have a bit of green inside them but very very few. mind you these nootka rose were dug last july about the 25th or 28th. nootka rose is the king of storage! i'll have to buy some from another organic farmer in morris who i initially got all my garlic from. the really cool thing about nootka rose is it peels pretty easy, not as easy has a hardneck but nothing like the garlic from the grocery store. i have read that garlic will acclimate to your climate so my nootka rose may eventually turn into a hardneck after years of growing it?

tom