Elephant Garlic Harvest today

Today was Elephant Garlic harvest day. About 4 or 5 years ago a man from Alabama sent me two bulbs of elephant garlic from his garden. We LOVE this stuff so it is hard not to just eat it all - I try to eat only a third and replant two thirds.

Last year I started incorporating permie techniques so the garlic was grown with -- oh -- just about everything else; can't say as I had a real plan other than putting in the crimson clover. In the places that the clover grew heaviest is where I got the biggest bulbs from the garlic. Over the winter radishes, mustard and cabbage have grown and been harvested in between the garlic. Lots of chop and drop, packing the weeds down around the garlic. Sometimes I just forgot about it completely and I would have to wade in through the weeds to even find the garlic.

So I would say the permie way works for me. I planted it in late Sept, chopped and dropped a few times, and dug it up 7 1/2 months later. Now I will plant some beans and other stuff in those areas and then in late September garlic will go back in. I have probably spent no more than a day or two over the last 7 months related to the growing of this garlic.

I do have other regular garlic but I keep this separate since I am trying to be the Elephant Garlic Queen when I retire - possible cash crop. Here is a link to some pics - I hope everyone can see them.elephant garlic album

Looking good! I leave mine in the grown year round, just harvesting when I want to eat it.

You don't have any problems with splitting? If I leave mine in too long they start to split. I already have a couple of splitters this year but we eat those right off anyway.

I've mostly been eating the tops for a few years, so I'm not sure if they're splitting or not.....

I would love to grow some of these and since Tyler posted that means they will do well in my heavy clay soil. Do they need full sun or partial sun? I have one more full sun location left to dig and the moth beans will need a friend there.

They seem to be fine in either full sun or part shade.

Garlic is pretty simple to grow. I ordered 5 varieties from wegrowgarlic in Wisconsin about 3 years ago and the next
year I ordered 5 more varieties. Great variety in shape, sizes and colors and they all taste like garlic! I tried to keep up
with them and compare flavors but in the end I just pronounced them all good. If a clove sprouts my wife puts it at my
place at the table and I find it and go plant it. I go through the drill of trying to find out what variety it is so I can mark
it but I think that has about lost it's importance.

I bought some elephant garlic at the grocery store about 5 years ago. We ate half and planted half and it got lost in my
garden re-work that winter and in the early spring when I had written it off as a failed experiment boom up it came. So it
is still getting re-planted here and there in out of the way places. It does very well with no more effort than to stick it in the
ground and go out and dig it up when it is ready.

Jeanine Gurley wrote:Today was Elephant Garlic harvest day. About 4 or 5 years ago a man from Alabama sent me two bulbs of elephant garlic from his garden. We LOVE this stuff so it is hard not to just eat it all - I try to eat only a third and replant two thirds.

I do have other regular garlic but I keep this separate since I am trying to be the Elephant Garlic Queen when I retire - possible cash crop. Here is a link to some pics - I hope everyone can see them.elephant garlic album

Beautiful pictures Jeanine! It looks like you have really been able to expand your plantings to get a nice harvest each year.

I am excited to be growing elephant garlic for the first time this year. I swapped some berry cuttings in exchange for half a dozen cloves a month ago. Five of them have sprouted so far and are growing under my young apple trees.