The forecast is set for rain all weekend with thunder and lightning, then some more rain for pretty much the whole of next week. With this in mind I made the decision to pull the garlic yesterday while the soil is still dry.
I grow my garlic from saved seed garlic that I have kept going for many years, it’s a big strapping hardneck variety called Red Duke and it’s one of the best I’ve ever grown. I’m very pleased with the harvest, nice looking bulbs with no sign of rot. Leek rust on garlic leaves has been present on other plots for a few weeks now, it only really took hold of my garlic this week and there’s still plenty of green on the leaves. There’s a touch of allium leaf minor action on some of the garlic stems, I picked off the little cocoons and set the bulbs aside to be used first in the kitchen. As usual, I will keep the biggest and healthiest bulbs back for replanting in November.
As of yet, no sign of the rain.
Allotment Haven 
Looking good. It’s been raining here this morning. xx
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Thank you Flighty, the rain is here now, and lots of it! xx
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Beautiful harvest !
Our has rotten though we didn’t have a lot of rain.
If only we could find your variety in France, it seem to be very resistant.
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Oh that’s such a shame about your garlic 😦 I’m more than happy to send you some of our garlic for planting if you wish, let me know if you’d like some 🙂 My email is allotmenthaven@yahoo.com
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I pulled my garlic as well. Although there is no sign of rain, the garlic’s neighbors really need a good watering, plus it’s time to get the French Horticultural beans into the garlic’s space, so out they came. Glad I did, as there was already some signs of wrap splitting along the neck on some bulbs. The crops march on…some coming out, come going in! What do you plant in that space after your garlic?
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Hi Carolee, my garlic were all alone in a deep raised bed, I plan to reuse that space now by sowing more carrots, I picked up a few new varieties that I’d like to try and I’m always looking for good ones that sit well overwinter. So far the best one for my location is Autumn King.
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Hi there, have you tried Flakkee? I like it and it seems to do well on my plot – it failed this year but I blame the different supplier of seeds
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No I haven’t tried that variety, on my ever growing list to try!
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