How Do You Know When Garlic Is Ready to Harvest?

If you've ever grown garlic before, you know that waiting for it to grow and be ready for harvest takes a lot of patience. Like more patience than you would need to finish the longest game of Monopoly ever. That's because garlic bulbs take about as many months to form underground as babies spend in the womb.

You typically plant garlic by cloves in the fall. The cloves settle in over winter and then begin to grow in the spring, producing aboveground stems for photosynthesis and more cloves around the OG in order to form a complete bulb. It's pretty magical to think of how that one little clove can create so many more versions of itself—but that magic doesn't happen overnight.

It's important to harvest garlic at the right time to ensure both optimal flavor and storage potential. So once you're nearing the 8- or 9-month anniversary of putting your garlic cloves in the garden, how do you tell if they're ready for harvest?

How Garlic Grows

Before we look at the telltale signs your garlic is ready to harvest, let's go over the growth stages of these little bulbs. Knowing what's going on at each different stage can help you better guage when it's the right time to harvest.

Here are the key growth stages of garlic:

Sprouting

If you live in a warmer climate, you might see green shoots emerge above the soil soon after planting cloves. Those of you in colder climates probably won't see anything happening over the long winter. That's normal. Your garlic is developing roots and getting settled in the ground, in preparation to take off in the spring.

Leaf Development

As garlic plants continue to grow, they produce long, slender stems that form the green tops. Each leaf on the garlic stalk represents the growth of one clove, so you can start to get a nice idea what's happening beneath the soil surface. If you're growing a hard neck garlic variety, your plant will also produce garlic scapes, or curly flower stalks. These garlic scapes are 100 percent edible (bonus harvest!). They're a delicious way to snag the taste of garlic in the spring while you’re still waiting on the bulb to form. It's also a good idea to remove them because they can hinder the development of the bulb if left on the plant.

Bulb Formation

As the spring growing season progresses, the plants will direct their energy toward bulb formation. The bulbs gradually enlarge underground, developing layers of cloves. If you were to harvest right now, you'd end up with smaller cloves that won't store very well.

Maturation

The final stage of garlic growth is maturation, during which the bulbs fully develop and reach their optimal size, flavor, and storage capability. You'll want to harvest soon because if left in the ground too long, the bulbs can split, which also reduces their storage potential.

The 1st Sign Your Garlic Is Ready to Harvest

A key sign that your little garlic treasures are ready to be dug up is when the bottom two or three leaves starts to turn brown and wilt. This happens because the plant is redirecting all its nutrients to bulb development and neglecting those leaves. The plant will begin drying out from the bottom up. The ideal moment for harvest will be when the top leaves have dried to a crisp texture but still retain their green color.

The garlic plants below are not quite ready.

The 2nd Sign Your Garlic Is Ready to Harvest

The great thing about root crops like garlic is you can pull a couple to check on their readiness and leave the rest to mature further if needed. Once you notice the bottom leaves turning brown, go ahead and pull a couple bulbs.

Gently brush away the soil around those bulbs to evaluate their size and shape. Mature garlic bulbs should be well-formed, plump, and firm. Bulbs that appear underdeveloped or excessively small have not reached their full potential yet.

You could also split open one of the bulbs to check on clove separation. The cloves should be clearly distinguishable from one another, with well-defined individual skins. If the cloves are tightly packed together or lack differentiation, the bulbs may need more time to mature. Bring that bulb inside for immediate enjoyment, and leave the rest of your garlic plants to grow a little longer.

If you'd like, you could even do a little taste test. Peel a clove and sample it. If the flavor is mild enough to enjoy on a first date without worrying about your breath, the garlic may not be fully mature.

The 3rd Sign Your Garlic Is Ready to Harvest

This one might seem obvious, but the passage of time is another indicator. In Nashville, I typically plant garlic in November and harvest around July, about 8 months after planting those tiny cloves. Many gardeners harvest between June and September, though we harvested our soft neck garlic varieties as early as April or May back when I lived in warm Houston. (Soft neck varieties tend to mature faster than hard neck varieties.)

It really depends on how far you are from the equator. Make sure to leave yourself a note of when you harvested this year so that you'll have a better frame of reference for next year.

Why Is My Garlic Taking So Long to Mature?

If you've passed the 9-month mark and it doesn't look like your garlic will be ready any time soon, your plants are probably stunted because of their growing conditions. Remember, the time to harvest only applies to garlic being grown under its preferred conditions.

I once tried to grow garlic in a shady bed back in my Chicago yard. While the garlic I planted did sprout and eventually produced lots of garlic scapes, it didn't do much else. I tried to amend the soil and cheer the plants along, but no amount of fertilizer or positive plant affirmations could change the fact that my neighbor’s tree was blocking five hours of bright sunlight from these plants. 

I finally gave up after about 10 months had passed and dug in. Each clove had formed a bulb, but they were far from impressive in size.

If this happens to you, pick a spot that gets at least 6 to 8 hours of good sunlight next year so that your bulbs will receive all the light they need to grow large and nutritious underground. Otherwise, resign yourself to small bulbs and a long wait for disappointment.

Also, don't forget to harvest those scapes if you're growing hard neck varieties to encourage larger bulbs.

How to Harvest Garlic

Once the bottom leaves begin turning brown, make sure to stop watering altogether around your garlic plants. As the soil dries, the bulbs will dry, tighten, and seal themselves for harvest. Harvesting a wet bulb might mean mold or mildew in your future. And that doesn’t sound like a great future to me. 

If you've been getting a ton of rain, try to wait for a dry period to harvest your bulbs.

To harvest your garlic, dig around the root of the plant and tug on the stem to pull the whole plant up at once. Gently brush off the dirt before hanging it up to dry and cure. Avoid getting it wet for at least a few weeks. 

Garlic can then be stored in a cool, dry place and used all year long until you're ready to harvest the next year's batch. 

Time to Harvest Some Garlic!

These are the key ways to tell when your garlic bulbs are ready for harvest. As soon as you pull them up, it's time to order your garlic so you're ready to plant again in the fall!

While growing garlic and pulling up one bulb for every clove you planted might not be as exciting as a huge potato harvest or a massive herb haul, there's still something so rewarding about tugging on a stem and pulling up a perfectly shaped bulb, its tightly wrapped sides bulging with cloves. To see one little clove disappear into the soil for nearly a year and come up complete is nothing short of a garden miracle in my book.