Harvesting the elephant garlic

We won a few elephant garlic cloves in one of our National Vegetable Society Essex District Association raffles at the beginning of 2020. We tried to grow garlic last year with little success, but we were up for giving it another go this year!

We grew the garlic in multipurpose compost last year, but we think this had too much nutrient in for the garlic. Therefore, this year, we just planted them in a pot of good old Essex clay!

They’ve been growing well until a couple of weeks ago when they started to die back and the leaves turn yellow/brown. After some initial concern, we realised that this is what they’re supposed to do – phew!

So today, we upturned the pot and carefully eased out each of the garlics.

As you can see, not a bad effort for second timers! We hope to try growing garlic again next year. For now, the bulbs have been hung up outside in a place protected from the elements to dry out for a couple of weeks. After this, we will remove the leaves and then store the garlic until we’re ready to eat it!