Garlic Harvest time!

It's a month early this year, but it's time to pull the garlic! I planted over 3000 cloves last year, and this year is the nicest, biggest garlic I've ever had. I have been growing a Red Russian garlic for about 6 years now, and save my own seed each year. I started off with really small, crappy garlic seed, but each year they have gotten bigger and better with good nutrition and lots of mycchorrizae and effective micro organisms. (more on these another day!)

I was also given 2 other varieties - Musica and Gabriola garlic to try. They turned out pretty good, as well, except the Gabriola was covered with rust. It will probably take me a year or two to get rid of it. I haven't done this with rust before, but I have done it with other fungal diseases with huge success. I use a technique called 'seeding'. I will take some of the leaves that are covered with the rust, and bury them in the beds I plan on planting the garlic in this fall. This will start the process of attracting all the beneficial bacterium that will counteract the rust. Most people don't do this because they are scared - I think it just makes sense. Similar to our own immune systems - I am basically vaccinating my garlics. A couple of years from now, I will most likely have no rust anywhere in my fields. My other prevention for fungus and disease is to do a really good crop rotation - it is 4 years between planting in the same spot.

My biggest problem with garlic is that I never have enough! I have to save half my crop for seeding for the next year (half will increase my crop for next year), and the other half sells in about 2 seconds flat. I'm already sold out of the Red Russian. My eventual goal is to plant at least 10,000 of them.