Harvesting Garlic: 3 Signs the Bulbs Are Ready
Pull too early and the bulbs stay small; too late and they split and barely keep. Here's how to nail the timing.
In late June, garlic season kicks off across the German-speaking regions — at least for the autumn-planted cloves you set out last year. Timing decides both bulb size and how well they store. Three signs tell you when the moment has come.
Why timing decides how well your garlic stores
Garlic ripens underground, so harvest timing comes down to reading the signs rather than seeing the bulb. Lift it too early and the cloves stay small with a thin protective skin. Leave it too long and the outer wrapper splits, the cloves fall apart, and the bulb starts to rot or sprout — either way, storage is wrecked.
So the window is narrow: you want to lift the bulb once it has matured but before it opens itself up. For autumn-planted garlic, that point falls between late June and mid-July in most regions.
Sign 1: The lower leaves turn brown
Each green leaf corresponds to one protective wrapper around the bulb. When the lower three to four leaves have turned brown and dry from the tip while the upper ones stay green, the garlic is ready. Rule of thumb: roughly a third to half of the foliage has yellowed.
The key: don’t wait until all the foliage has died back. By then the bulb has lost its intact outer skin and falls apart when you clean it.
Sign 2: The flower stalk has appeared
Hardneck varieties (often sold as rocambole) send up a round flower stalk in early summer, the garlic scape. It’s best to cut this out once it makes its first curl, so the plant pours its energy into the bulb instead of the flower. The cut scape, by the way, is a treat in the pan.
As a rule of thumb, the bulb is ready about three to four weeks after you remove the scape. Softneck varieties don’t form a scape — for those, the leaf sign is all you have.
Sign 3: A test dig confirms it
Not sure? Carefully dig up a single bulb and take a look. The cloves should be plump and clearly separated, but the outer skin still closed and undamaged. If the cloves are already showing through the skin, you’ve just passed the sweet spot — harvest the rest right away.
A test dig costs you one bulb and gives you certainty for the whole row. Come autumn planting, you’ll know exactly how long your variety needs in your spot.
Curing and storing it right
Harvest on a dry day and lift the bulbs with a digging fork rather than pulling them by the foliage, which would tear the neck. Shake off loose soil, but don’t wash the garlic. Then let it cure with the leaves on for two to three weeks somewhere airy, shaded and dry — hung up as a loose bundle works well.
Once the neck is papery and fully dry, trim the roots and stalks. Garlic keeps best stored cool, dark and airy at around 10 to 15 degrees Celsius — not in the fridge, where damp cold makes it sprout. That way you’ll draw on your harvest well into winter.
Note down your harvest day
Harvest timing shifts from year to year and from spot to spot. Note it down and you’ll plan more precisely next time. In Rootivo you log the harvest straight into the garden journal — with a photo and date. Next year you’ll see at a glance when your garlic ripened in your location, and you can time the autumn planting to match.
Im Lexikon: Knoblauch