Harvest

I felt like I was giving birth, digging up the garlic with my little spade this morning before the heat of the day hit.  I pushed away the fall leaves, dug carefully around the head, making sure I did not dig into the head. I then lifted under the roots, breaking them up a bit,  and lifted the entire head out of the ground, gently knocking excess dirt off, without disturbing the head.

The garlic is of the hard neck variety, and is called "Music". Planted late last fall, this was my first garlic crop.  The cloves came courtesy of a good friend - Woodstock Occupy Congress Ross -  who had the cloves and  nowhere to plant them..so they he made a special ride up from NJ to  plant them in one of my raised beds while the light was fading one cold autumn day.

He left them to my care, and I felt like a mother hen, mulching them for the long cold winter, and then fretting in the spring when the greens were up and we had multiple frosts.  Somehow it all worked out, and according to the leaves on the plant, this was the weekend to harvest.

All 13 cloves are laying on paper bags in my back porch, and will be tied up tomorrow to hang and dry for a month.

Of course, I could not wait to dry all of them, and opened up one to cook with, and the head had giant sweet smelling garlic cloves......which I chopped up and made a huge veggie stir fry for the week. 

I also noticed that I have baby zucchinis on my plants, as well as little tomatoes. Everything is a good 2-4 weeks ahead due to the warm spring....which means I can eek out a longer growing season!  When I return from Spain I will be coming home to my first zucchinis... YAY.

Photo taken in my garden, my foot included so you could see the size of the garlic!