Harvest no dig Garlic

[MatthewParticipant]

Hello Charles and all users.

First post on the forum but much advice gained from the forum.

Looking forward to havesting a large crop of garlic in the summer assuming all goes well.

One question I didn’t ask you Charles on the course back in November was how you harvest your garlic with minimum disturbance to the soil.

I usually use a fork to loosen the soil enough then pull.

Having spead 13 cubic meters of aged mushroom compost by hand I wish to use these beds after havest for other crops. Its doing a great job in supressing weeds with just the pesky couch grass trying to grow and lots of worms on what was a sandy dead field. I just dont wont to ruin the stucture that is being created and bring yet more weeds up.

What would people suggest.

Thanks, Matthew

[StringfellowParticipant]

Great job with the compost Matthew, I imagine you felt that the next day!

I use my trusty copper trowel to severe roots around each bulb and then twist out to minimise disturbance. However, some disturbance is inevitable and I wouldn’t let it keep you awake at night.

Would be interested to hear if there is an easier or improved method used by anyone.

[charlesModerator]

Tris’ advice is good, use the trowel to lever gently, each bulb. In moist weather they may pull out without a trowel, because you are harvesting before the end of June, not in July or even (as sometimes advised!) in August.
So tops are quite green at harvest, meaning you get a good pull of the bulb, needing less loosening.
I would not use a fork to loosen the soil, that breaks many fungal threads.

[StringfellowParticipant]

Thanks Charles. Twisting out from moist soil sounds like a great way of minimising disturbance. Arthur at our local site lost all his leeks one year as some thief visited during a long wet spell – walked along the row and just pulled them all up, no need to dig at all. Thankfully these incidents are uncommon.

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