Every year the best of my garlic gets stolen, because people view garlic as "an expensive thing to buy at the grocery store" so they're motivated to steal it. In a non-capitalistic reality, it only takes saving a few bulbs and putting chives into the ground to grow garlic, I have no clue why it's expensive. These people could simply grow it for free. To save my garlic, I decided to harvest the biggest ones early. So if the thieves still want to steal, they'll have to take the smallest, scragly-looking bulbs, and that's not going to be much fun is it. I have a bunch of small ones because they re-seeded on their own, without me planting them. Free garlic. Grocery stores are a scam.
You're supposed to harvest garlic when at least a third of their foliage has turned yellow. As you can see, they're not quite there yet, and I don't exactly know if something bad will happen should I harvest them early. Time to find out!
I'm very happy with their size, they always seem so big compared to the stalks! Next thing to do with them is to 'cure' them. Curing process is just drying the outer layers of the plant, so that the inside part is protected from going bad. That's why garlic's outer skin is always so papery, it's dried to protect the inside! It's best to air-dry them, on top of a drying sheet or a net, in a drafty place shaded from the sun. Yet, all I got is this balcony, so good luck to them. After all the foliage is dried you can braid them all together to get those witchy bulb hangings!
