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Re: Harvest Stiff Neck Garlic

Gary,

I have taken the liberty of copying this note (which includes some of
your private email to me) to the veg list as it may be of some general
interest.

I had Ron's book out today as I noticed some of my artichoke garlics
(first year for these) are taking on a rather odd form, and I wanted to
see if I had a problem.  I was scanning the book and spotted the section
on scape removal.  Our recent discussion led me to read the whole
chapter in detail.

Ron's experiment was to leave the scape on for varying lengths of time,
including right up to before harvest.  His general conclusion, after a
few years of experimentation, was that garlics topped early (just as the
curl forms) grow bigger but have poorer keeping qualities than those
topped later after the stalk has hardened, all other things being
equal.  He experienced about a 10% loss in diameter of the bulbs from
plants topped late, although the smaller bulbs had higher solid content,
thus making them more dense.

He also noted that garlics grown on less rich soil keep better than
garlics grown on rich soil, and the variation from scape removal is
less, both in size and keeping quality.  (Of course garlics grown on
poor soil are smaller in general.)

Lastly, he had communicated with commercial growers who never remove the
scape until harvest.  These people wondered what all the fuss was about.

I must admit to being rather erratic in my scape removal procedure,
although I've never waited as late as Ron describes, and the soil I
choose to grow my garlic in has more often than not been in the poorer
part of my garden.  (I have 1/4 acre with an amazing range of fertility,
for reasons we won't get into here.)

The upshot here is that, after rereading Ron's discussion, combined with
the series of exchanges we have had by email, on the list and on the
NG's, and paying close and honest attention to my own practices, I think
that Ron's analysis is probably quite correct.  I do note that the
catalog states that they (Filaree) continue to remove their scapes "when
they begin to uncurl and the stalks become woody."  However I will
continue to leave my ophio garlics' roots and leaves untrimmed in
storage.  Can't hurt.

Oh, and my artichoke garlics look very similar to the drawing in the
book.  Very "scruffy" compared to the ophio types I am familiar with.

I'm off to Sunny Southern California in the morning, so I won't respond
to email for the week, but I'll answer any when I return Saturday.  (The
corn is up and it rained heavily the other day so my garden won't dry
out, but some of those garlics are just putting out their scapes.  What
if they get too mature while I'm gone???  ;-) )

Steve      






Gary Woods wrote:
> 
> On Sun, 07 Jun 1998 18:24:01 -0700, you wrote:
> 
> >My dad grows the
> >same varieties under the same general conditions and his doesn't keep as
> >long.  He removes roots and stalks.  But I have never run a controlled
> >experiment because I never wanted to waste that much garlic!
> 
> (I do recall "Growing Great Garlic" mentioning that scape non-removal
> was quite controversial, and more data were needed)
> Most interesting!  I'll do a semi-scientific test late this summer.  I
> also wonder if curing time might make a difference before things are
> trimmed.  I usually give 'em a couple of weeks, but maybe longer is
> better.  (Your results seem to indicate that forever is the best time
> to wait).
> 
> FWIW, do you know anything about Filaree Farm's current state?  I'm
> curious because the new catalog is much thinner, owing, they say, to a
> poor spring and heavy losses.  But Ron isn't mentioned at all, and
> there's less in general about the farm, etc.  Being of a curious bent,
> that makes me wonder if changes are happening/have happened.
> 
> --
> Gary Woods O- K2AHC   Public key at www.albany.net/~gwoods, or get 0x1D64A93D via keyserver
> gwoods@albany.net gwoods@wrgb.com
> fingerprint =  E2 6F 50 93 7B C7 F3 CA  1F 8B 3C C0 B0 28 68 0B
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