R – L: my seed garlic in onion bag, 1 bag of 1st quality seed garlic, 2 bags of 2nd quality seed garlic, 2 bags of garlic to eat
On Friday morning I got out there and made the next to last harvest of the green beans. I processed them much later in the day and got 4 more pints for the freezer. It looks like I might not make my target of 52 pints, having only 34 now.
I got a shower to wash the heavy duty bug spray off. The mosquitoes are voracious!
Then I got set up to clean up the garlic and grade it. I cut the stem off about 1” above the bulb and trimmed the roots off. Then I’d look at the quality of the cloves in each head.
Foremost, I was looking for the very best quality to save for seed for this year. These bulbs had to have, at a minimum, 5 very large cloves, like the one 2nd from left. It also has a smaller clove, but nearly the size of the others. I save this one in hopes that next year the head will have 6 full size cloves. If the 6th clove had been small, I would have rejected it as a second quality.
I found several heads that had 6 large cloves. And I found several heads that had 7 cloves, like the 2 on the right. I was looking for a minimum of 200 cloves to plant. This came to roughly 40 heads, about 208 cloves. They weighed 7.97 lbs or average weight 3 oz/head.
I had been planting for 3 people, and to have enough seed, and a bit to sell. Now there’s one person, and I’d like to sell some. So I’m dropping from 300 to 200 plants for next year and see how that goes.
The 2nd grade of quality had heads with only 4 large cloves (left and center), 5 small cloves (2nd right), 5 large cloves but a small 6th (right), or several small cloves (2nd left). There were a lot of these, mostly from the small garden.
I got 102 heads of this type, for 18.25 lbs. Average weight per head was 2¾ oz.
The eating grade was all the small, odd ball sized, or not well cured bulbs. There were far too many of these this year. I had 101 heads weighing 12.74 lbs. Average head weight was 1.92 oz. You can see the wide variety of rejected heads.
Top grade heads for seed and selling
I had around 300 heads I harvested. I damaged 23 in digging and most were top grade heads. I guesstimated they weighed about 3.80 lbs. Adding this to the ones I had I got 48.68 lbs of garlic this year.
2nd grade heads for selling
In 2020, I had 42.67 lbs total and 20.66 lbs was eating quality, from 310 plants.
Eating quality
In 2019, I harvested 38.45 lbs from about 360 plants. In 2018 I harvested 33 lbs from 340 plants. So each year, as I select the very best cloves to plant, they grow much larger heads and the weight has increased a lot, from 340 heads at 33 lbs to 300 heads at 48 lbs, over 3 years.
I make sure the soil is amended, and I put a tablespoon of BulbTone in the bottom of each hole. I plant 6” deep and 6” apart and mulch heavily, a minimum of 4 packed inches of hay. I’ve done exactly the same each year.
This selective breeding and saving the very best and selling or eating the rest is the foundation for any program on a farm or homestead. The secret is to know exactly what makes the very best, whether it’s a rooster, a cow or a squash. And then to ONLY breed from those. One has to know the breed or variety characteristics, and select for those.
When we were breeding cows, that’s why we culled our cow, as she was having difficulties birthing the calves we were seeking. She had picked up the dairy build of her body, being smaller and a narrower pelvis. We kept her sister, who did not have the physical problems birthing the same calves. This cow had picked up the beef build and had a bigger body and pelvis.
For layers, I selected the very best body characteristics each year for layers. And it paid off, as the 18 birds usually earned their keep and we had all the eggs we needed.
I don’t save much seed here, as I cannot keep similar varieties separated enough to insure purity of seed. Plus being Zone 4 makes it hard to winter over vegetables to get seed the next year. But garlic is easy as it’s the only variety I grow.
Learning this essential skill is very important to success on a farm or homestead.