Harvest Cure Garlic in Hot Climates Without Failure

All right gardeners, this is the moment we have all been waiting for. After months of growing, watching, feeding, and waiting, it is finally garlic harvest time here in my garden. And today I'm taking you through every single step, how to know your garlic is actually ready to pull, how to harvest it without damaging it, and how to cure it correctly for a hot, humid climate. Because I promise you, the way most guides tell you to cure garlic will not work here, and I'm going to show you exactly what to do instead. If you're new here, my name is Jera, I'm a lifelong gardener, permaculture designer, and I own a seed and plant nursery in Orlando, Florida. My mission is to help home gardeners grow more food by sharing the exact plants, techniques, and industry secrets I use every day in both my garden and my nursery. If you want to grow along with me, many of the seeds and plants I mention are available on my website jerasgarden.com. This is the second video in my garlic series. If you missed part one, where I walk you through choosing seed garlic, vernalization, soil prep, and planting, it's linked in the description below. Also, if you need some seed garlic and want to try growing my personal favorite varieties, I want to make sure you know about my annual seed garlic pre-sale. The pre-sale started a couple weeks ago and ends on July 10th. We collect orders for a certain time period and then ship them all out at once in September. That timing is very intentional, it gets your seed garlic to you with enough time to vernalize if you need to, and have it ready to go for planting at the right time. Check out the link in the description to view the varieties of seed garlic I offer, prices, and other details. I will not have more seed garlic after the pre-sale ends until next year, so reserve yours today. Alright, so this is six months after planting all of my garlic like I showed you guys in video number one of this series. So let's get into it and start with the most important question. How do you actually know when it's time to harvest your garlic? Because this is where I see a lot of warm climate gardeners go wrong more than anywhere else when it comes to growing garlic. They either pull too early because they're excited or they wait too long because every guide they read was written for a cold climate with a completely different timeline. In cold climates garlic is typically harvested in June or July. Here in Florida and similar warm climates do not go by any specific dates, instead by how the plants look. Every green leaf above ground on your garlic plant corresponds to a wrapper layer on the bulb under the ground. The plant is building its wrapper and its leaves at the same time, so when the leaves start to die back those wrapper layers are drying and setting around your bulbs. What you're watching for is the lower most leaves turning brown and drying up from the bottom of the plant upward while the upper leaves are still a little bit green. When roughly half the leaves are still green and the lower half have browned and dried up, that is your harvest window. At that point the bulb should be fully mature. If you harvest too early the cloves are underdeveloped, the wrappers are too thin and wet, and the garlic simply will not cure or store properly. If you wait too long those outer wrappers start to break down right there underneath the ground. You end up pulling bulbs that are technically mature but have very little protective layering left, which means a shorter storage life and more vulnerability to mold during curing. Half green, half brown, that's the signal it's ready to be harvested. About 10 days to two weeks before you plan to harvest, stop watering the bed completely. I know that feels counterintuitive, your instinct is to keep caring for the plants right up until the end, but this step is really important especially in Florida. Stopping water allows the soil to dry out around the bulbs, which starts to dry down those outer wrappers before the garlic even comes out of the ground. When you pull garlic that has been sitting in moist soil right up until harvest, you're pulling up bulbs that are saturated. Wet garlic takes much longer to cure and is significantly more vulnerable to mold, which is already a challenge in a humid climate. Give it that dry down period and you're setting yourself up for a much better cure. My garlic patch definitely shows signs of being at least half brown. Some of them are a little past that point, so I need to hurry up and harvest those out. I planted these back in early December, it is now May just to give you an idea. I want to harvest all of these out before my rainy season starts. And this area of my garden looks absolutely wild and lush and green now. If you saw the first video in this series, everything around me was dead because we had a really bad cold front. So things have kind of been growing and trying to get on top of my garlic, but I've been on top of removing weeds, removing vines or other plants that are growing nearby from growing on top of my garlic because that means they'll be blocking out sunlight and then the garlic plants don't get the energy and everything that they need to produce nice big bulbs. And I also tested quite a few different varieties usually every season. I'm always testing new things to see if I find something I like better. In this bed I have lots of different varieties. I really went all out and tested a whole bunch of different kinds last season just to see if I found any that I liked better than others. But still my absolute favorite one, which is called Vietnamese Purple, still outperformed all of them. So that one is definitely a good variety. That one also was ready for harvest like last week, earlier than the rest of the ones here. So not only does it just produce really well, but it's also early to start maturing. The ones that are left here are still pretty green. They're not even half green, half brown yet. They're still majority green. But I did leave a couple in here that way when I film this video I could show you the harvesting process. Use a small garden fork to loosen the area around the garlic bulbs instead of just pulling with your hands. You don't want to snap the stalk or the neck right off the bulb because it helps the garlic bulb cure better. Push the garden fork into the soil several inches away from the plant. Loosen all the way around it and then gently lift and pull the whole clump up together. Once it is out of the ground, handle it carefully. At this stage the outer wrappers are still soft and fragile and any bruising or tearing creates an entry point for mold and bacteria. Take a look at each bulb as you pull it. Healthy bulbs should feel firm and solid with the cloves well defined under the wrappers. If a bulb feels soft, mushy, or smells off, set it aside. It is not a candidate for long-term storage and will not cure well. You can use those right away in the kitchen just do not mix them with your healthy harvest. Alright so I harvested one that looked pretty good. It has started splitting open which means it kind of went past maturity. Clearly the whole thing is super dried out and brown. You don't want them to split and get all separated like that because then they're not going to store as long. So this garlic I would definitely use up earlier first before all the rest of them. This was another one that is ready. This is the Vietnamese purple. Also goes by the name deer field purple. Push back all of this mulch. Take a little hand shovel and start working your way around to pop it out. Do not pull by the stalk. Try to grab that whole bulb. Now we're at the step that makes or breaks your entire harvest, curing. And this is where I really need you to pay attention because almost everything written about curing garlic is written for a cold dry climate. And if you follow that advice here in Florida you're going to end up with moldy garlic and a whole lot of disappointment. So let me explain what curing actually does because when you understand the why the how makes a lot more sense. When garlic comes out of the ground it is still biologically active. The outer wrappers are soft and moist. The neck of the bulb that narrow section between the top of the bulb and where the leaves begin needs to dry down completely and seal off before the garlic is shelf stable. If you skip curing or rush it, moisture sits in that neck and that is exactly where rot begins. Curing drives off all of that residual moisture, dries the outer wrappers into the papery crinkly layers you are used to seeing, and hardens and seals the neck so the bulb is protected for long-term storage. In a cold dry climate curing is fairly easy. You hang it in a barn or a shed. The dry air does all of the work and in two or three weeks it's all done. In Florida it's a different situation entirely. Our ambient humidity actively works against the curing process. You need to be intentional about where and how you cure or you will lose a lot of bulbs to mold. Here is what you need for a successful cure in a warm humid climate. Airflow, shade, and low humidity. Do not lay your garlic flat on a table or tarp to cure. You want air moving around all of the sides of every bulb. The best method is to hang them. Softneck varieties have flexible stalks that can be braided and a garlic braid is both beautiful and functional giving you perfect airflow on every bulb in the braid. Hardneck varieties have stiff stalks that do not braid well so bundle them in small groups with twine and hang those bundles. A mesh drying rack or a wire strung between two points also works really great. Now where you hang them is just as important as how. The worst place to cure garlic in Florida is outside or in a shed or garage that has poor ventilation. The best setup is somewhere with active moving air and controlled humidity. A room inside your house with a fan running, a space near an air conditioning vent, a well-ventilated outbuilding with cross ventilation, and ideally a fan. Temperature wise somewhere between 75 and 95 degrees with active air movement is ideal and plan for a full four weeks minimum. Cold climate guards say two to three weeks that is not enough time for a warm climate garlic. Our garlic comes out of the ground carrying more residual moisture and we're working against higher ambient humidity. Give it four weeks before you trim and store it away. If your setup has great airflow and a fan running that helps move things along but do not rush it. Curing is done when the outer wrappers are papery and dry. They should crinkle and rustle when you handle the bulb. The stalk should be completely brown and dry all the way through. If anything still has any softness or flexibility to it or if you can feel any moisture at all in the neck portion it needs more time. Do not rush this. An extra week of curing is a lot better than losing all of your bulbs to rot while in storage. Once you are confident the cure is complete you can trim. Cut the stalk off about an inch above the top of the bulb. Leave that little stub. Do not cut right down to the bulb itself. Trim the roots close. Now your garlic is ready for long-term storage. For storage think cool, dry, and dark but not cold. Do not put cured garlic in the refrigerator. I know that sounds like the logical place but refrigerator temperatures actually break garlic's dormancy and trigger sprouting. That is exactly what we are doing on purpose when we vernalize seed garlic but it is the last thing you want happening to your eating garlic. Room temperature in a cool shaded part of your home is ideal. Store it in something that allows a little airflow, a mesh bag, a wicker basket, a paper bag, a dedicated garlic keeper. What you want to avoid is plastic bags or airtight containers which trap humidity and invite rot. So how long will your garlic last in storage? Softneck varieties store the longest. A properly cured softneck stored correctly can last six to eight months sometimes longer. Hardneck varieties have a shorter storage life typically three to five months. If you grew both use your hardnecks first. Before we wrap up the harvest I want to take a moment to talk to you about saving your own seed garlic because it is absolutely something you can do and plenty of gardeners do it with great success. As you go through your harvest set aside your biggest most beautiful best formed bulbs. Those become your seed stock for next season. The largest cloves produce the largest plants which produce the largest bulbs. Store your saved seed garlic exactly the same way as your eating garlic. Cool, dry, dark with good airflow. Then when planting time comes around pull it out vernalize it in your refrigerator and plant it back into the ground. The full process for that is covered in the first video of my garlic growing series and I'll just link that in the description below. Now I do want to be upfront with you about my own personal approach because I think it matters for where I garden. I personally choose not to save my own seed garlic here in Florida. The disease and pest pressure in our subtropical soils is already incredibly high and saving and replanting from my own stock year after year means I risk carrying over any pathogens or pests that may have moved into the soil around my bulbs. For me the cleaner option is to use fresh disease certified seed garlic every season from a reputable supplier. That certification matters. It tells me the garlic has been tested and cleared of the most serious garlic diseases which gives my planting the cleanest possible start. I also do not recommend buying garlic from the grocery store to replant. Grocery store garlic is grown for eating. It has not been tested or certified as disease free for planting purposes and may have been treated with sprout inhibitors among other things and in most cases you will not know which variety you're actually planting which matters a great deal when you're trying to select the right cultivar for your climate and your goals. So whether you decide to save your own seed garlic or source fresh certified stock each year both are valid paths just go in knowing the trade-offs and make the choice that makes the most sense for your garden and your region. Alright so your garlic is harvested cured and ready and honestly if you made it to this point you should feel really proud of yourself. Growing garlic in a warm humid climate is not always the most successful thing and the fact that you stuck with it and figured out what works for your garden is something worth celebrating. Remember to order your seed garlic before my pre-sale ends so you're ready to plant garlic this upcoming fall. The pre-sale ends July 10th and orders ship in September which is perfectly timed for fall planting. There is a link in the description that will take you to my website with all of the details. If this video helped you please give it a big thumbs up and consider subscribing so you don't miss any of my gardening tutorials. And if you have any garlic growing tips or something you swear helped you grow nice big bulbs drop it in the comments below. I learned so much from you all and would love to try some of your suggestions in my own garden this upcoming season. Happy gardening and I'll see you in the next video.