But to my surprise, I am beginning to pull the garlic a month earlier than last year, and the bulbs, for the most part, are of good size. The reasons for this bounty are unclear to me, but I'm not complaining!
Happily, this result is telling me that I am on the right track...the larger yields from the older beds mean that soil health and fertility are growing over time.
Once the garlic is pulled, I load it into the tractor bucket and ferry it up to the shed, where it is laid out over old bed frames to dry and cure.
And looking forward, I will again be saving the biggest and best 250 heads of garlic for next year's seed. I think I'll plant the 2015 garlic through the silage mulch in the tomato beds, which should save hours of hoeing and weeding through winter. I have thought this would be a good idea in the past, but as the tomatoes only die back in mid-May, I thought it would be too late to plant the garlic then; now I know better....live and learn, eh?