First garlic lifted

Today we lifted the first bed of garlic. These are a variety called 'purple wight'. They crop early, but are not noted to have the best storing capacity. Saying this, ours stored fine up to March last year! The total is about 80 bulbs. There is the odd small one, but the majority are a reasonable size so we are pleased. The plants did develop a little rust, but this was just over the last week and it doesn't seem to have affected the crop.



Here you can see that we leave the soil on the plants.



We give the plants a good shake, but don't wash them. They will be left to dry in the greenhouse. After a couple of weeks the bulbs are not so easily damaged and the mud comes off by removing the most outer layer around the bulbs. We can then braid them for storage.

The first early potatoes (arran pilot) were also dug out today. After reading about replanting early spud plants, if they still have pea sized tubers on, we have decided to give this a go. The theory is that you can get a second crop. Once we had removed the edible-sized potatoes we re-planted the plant and watered in well. Time will tell if we have success with this method.