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Virginia Gardening

Need help identifying problems with cured and stored garlic bulbs

6 years ago

These are pictures of the cloves of garlic I found yesterday when opening a bulb of hard neck I grew in my garden this past year. I planted it at the end of October 2016 and harvested it July of 2017. The plants grew nicely and looked very healthy, giving us tasty scapes in June then huge bulbs of beautiful garlic - at least on the outside. Many of the bulbs are perfect but several have had this problem. My first thought is soil fungus of some kind. I examined the damaged cloves for mites and other insects and can see no evidence of any. Notice there is one perfect clove in this bulb, the others are browning, rough and rubbery on the outside. When the cloves are cut, the inside is crisp and juicy despite the discoloration.

What do you think? And, are they edible raw and/or cooked? I don't like the idea of throwing them away. Thank you!

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Comments (4)

Ken "Fruity Paws" (N-Va 7a)
6 years ago
Those are big cloves, I don't grow hardnecks. Good harvest size. What variety was that?

I'm sure they're fine to eat - especially cooked. I will generally cut off the brown parts when using. You sometimes buy cloves in the store which have brown spots.

Is this the first time you've grown and harvested garlic? How did you cure them and then store them? My guess is that they may not have been dried and cured fully before storing. I like to hang my garlic outside to air dry for a week, then shake off any dried dirt, then mesh bag them and put them in my basement near my dehumidifier to ensure full dry for another week. Then commit to normal storage.
uniquebev
Original Author
6 years ago
Thank you for your thoughts and input. I have grown garlic for several years now and have never had this problem. I harvest, lay on a wire shelf in the garage (with excellent air circulation) for several weeks with leaves still attached, then clean them up a bit and return them to the shelf and we use them as needed. The shelf is not exposed to any direct sunlight but the garage has bright light due to a row of windows in the garage door. I forget what variety they are since they were grown from bulbs i saved from the previous year's harvest. I will venture a guess that they are organic german red. Yes, the cloves are enormous - almost like a small italian plum or pecan. Thanks again and happy growing!
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Thanks all for the info. I'll just store them as I normally would the cured bulbs and use them as needed and plant the nice ones come October. I have them outside on a covered side porch on a screen and their outer skins are already drying out pretty quickly in just these 24 hours. We'll probably use most of them over the next few months anyway since we use a lot of garlic. I do have a dehydrator and drying them to grind may be an option too that I might explore. I've never done that before but I have an uncle that does and I hear that "fresh" garlic powder is pretty amazing. I appreciate everyone's advice, let's just hope the rest of my bulbs aren't infested. Last year I had no idea and had a really large harvest only when it came time to cut the leaves off and trim up the roots I realized a lot of the bulbs felt hollow. They got almost all of my shallots and multiplier onions last year too, to the point where I had nothing to save to replant in fall. Again I had no idea until I thought they were done curing and realized most of my shallots/onions smelled weird and were partly rotted on the inside. I am going to have to get serious about control methods before the summer is over to try to head off the overwintering generation. Thanks again all!
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Ken "Fruity Paws" (N-Va 7a)
6 years ago
There was another garlic posting that has a good article linked in it, identifying it as fusarium.

Brown spots on garlic cloves
uniquebev
Original Author
6 years ago
great suggestions - thanks. I'm still not sure it's fusarium since the browning stays very superficial, never causing deep rotting areas. I will take precautions next fall and use some of the suggestions about soaking in a baking soda mix, etc.

happy planting!

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