Sure you can march those freshly dug bulbs off to the kitchen and begin using them immediately in your favorite recipes. But if you intend to store your bounty for any length of time it’s important that you first go through the process of properly curing those precious garlic bulbs.

Today’s entry will take a look at harvesting gourmet garlic, which is one of my favorite vegetables for growing in the home garden. Garlic is easy to grow, avoided by almost all garden pests, and the gourmet garlic varieties are far tastier than the store bought cloves that you may be accustomed to. The most challenging aspect of growing garlic for many gardeners is determining the proper time to harvest this generally care free crop. After reading this article you should have no problem harvesting your homegrown garlic bulbs.

Last month I posted an article describing techniques for providing spring garlic care to the growing plants, today I wanted to continue the discussion with a few comments regarding summertime garlic maintenance chores. Maybe I shouldn’t even use the word maintenance because there really isn’t much to do with garlic during the summer months.

For garlic growers like myself that do all of their garlic planting in the fall, spring is a pretty care free period provided that your garlic is grown in fertile soil and the bed is mulched with a thick layer of shredded leaves or straw.

“I loved your article on growing garlic. I have only used the grocery store kind with some success. I have already put in an order for next year. My question is how much garlic would a family of 5 that uses a decent amount of garlic need (to plant)? If you have any rules of thumb, I would appreciate it.”

I’ve published a number of articles related to growing garlic here on this site, so I thought that I knew a little bit about gourmet garlic and growing it in the home garden. But after listening to a workshop on garlic presented by David Stern of the Garlic Seed Foundation, I realized that there is much more to discover about the workings of this amazing plant.

I’ve recently posted a couple of articles containing gourmet garlic growing tips for planting fall garlic and strategies for obtaining the best garlic seed stock. I wanted to follow-up by sharing some of my favorite gourmet garlic varieties for growing in the home garden.

The last entry discussed the huge advantages of growing gourmet garlic and provided techniques for planting fall garlic, today I’ll share a few tips for buying the best gourmet garlic seed.