Our 2023 garlic crop is our biggest and best ever! We started harvesting it the week of July 17, and hope to finish this week or next. We grow 2 varieties: German White (also called "Music" or "German Extra Hardy"), and Crystal's Italian Grandfather, Primo's, garlic. We aren't sure of Primo's variety, so we just call it, "Primo's Garlic".
Every year, Primo's garlic emerges from the soil later in the spring and scapes later than our German White. This year, we're trying something a little different with Primo's Garlic. We are letting it grow for another week or two before harvesting to allow the heads to size up a bit more. The leaves have just started dying down and turning yellow; the plants are still mostly green.
We have found that the last couple of weeks of growing make all the difference in the size of the garlic heads when they come out of the ground. We begin to harvest our garlic for "green", or fresh, garlic, for market the first weekend in July. Each week, the green garlic grows *significantly* larger. We have found that even one week can make a huge difference in the size of the garlic heads!
Usually, we harvest both varieties at once, even though Primo's garlic usually hasn't dried down completely. Primo's garlic has consistently produced smaller heads than our German White, but it stores longer into the winter, and is delicious! We are excited to see if our experiment of leaving it in the ground for another week or two will allow the heads to grow larger this year. We'll report back with our results.
Last year, we only offered our German White garlic for sale online, but this year, we grew enough of Primo's Garlic to offer it online in limited quantities. We must first dry (cure) the garlic for about a month before selling it online. We expect our garlic to be available in our online shop at the end of August/beginning of September. We can't wait to share it with you!
