My garlic got a little bit forgotten with this hot and dry wave we have here until last week. It rained about an inch last week, and I realized a couple days back that I didn't pick garlic yet. So with an hour of light I went and pulled most of the backyard patch. It was a soft winter. We saw almost no snow. March was warm but April and May were cold.
I pulled scapes on about 60% of my garlic. I wanted to compare size and condition of bulbs versus harvested scapes and date of harvest. Many that had scapes removed got kind of rough looking. On some, the remainder of the scapes that grew out had constricted/damped off looking areas. I found some evidence of that allium fly maggot; holes in the stalk around ground level. I've never noticed it before, but I have never pulled the outer layers for that clean, garlic look, either. Perhaps it went unnoticed before.

The backyard bed is a 9x5' made with 2x6 lumber. Built in fall 2017(I think!?), forked and filled with compost. I plant down around ground level and then put shredded leaves or wood chips on top. This year it was plastic mulch, then wood chips. This location misses a lot of early morning sun, and really not much direct sun at all over the winter. Garlic emerges in February. Pictures from early June.


I pulled them by row. It was...15 rows of 7? With some twins. I broke scapes off the left (NW) edge of the box. A few weeks back I tried to break off four scapes per row, and left three intact. So starting on the left I pulled 5 bulbs: 4 broken and 1 intact, leaving 2 intact garlic plants to pick later. In other words, I tried to pick 5/7th of the garlic in this bed. After picking ~5 planting holes from each row, this is what was left in the bed (July9th). NEXT POST - comparisons by row
EDIT for clarity: This bed was picked on and pics taken July 9, 2020

For each row, the western edge of the bed is to the right. The one on the left is approximately hold #5, where I tried to leave the scapes. But there are some twins to mess up the count. For sure though, rightmost is outside edge of the bed, leftmost is a scape on garlic. Also, the row letter is not linked to back to front position. I just needed letters to re-group the photos.
Row A - one set of twins; the bulb with scape is smallest single bulb. Row B - two of these with scapes pulled were down to no green leaves. Row C- leftmost bulb with scape is small, as is pulled scape and no green leaves CONT.

ROW D- scape intact is small, far right outside is largest endROW D
ROW E - scape intact is respectable size, the small on right are twins I believe endROW E

ROW F- scape intact is smallest
endROWF

ROW G - scape intact is largest of row endROWG

CONT.

ROW H-scape intact is somewhat smaller, hard to tell with dirt endROWH

ROW I - scape intact is somewhat smaller endROWI

ROW J- scape intact same size. The pulled scapes on right are all brown leaves. endROWJ

CONT.

ROW K- scape intact is small, but all are pretty small endROWK

ROW L - scape intact is small endROWL


ROW M- scape intact is big endROWM

ROW N - scape intact were twins, but small even for twins endROWN

CONT.

ROW O- scape intact is smaller. Garlic are lucky they are not radishes. That dog will also eat turnips, the other one won't. end ROWO

NEXT - Conclusions

Out of 14 rows shown (B and J are the same rows!!)
53% scape intact bulbs are smaller/smallest 7.5/14 rows
14% scape intact bulbs are largest 2/14 rows
64% rows have outside (far right) as larger/largest. This outside placement got the most sun and space for each row. 9/14 rows
28% of the bulbs that had scapes removed were in very rough shape, lacking enough green leaves for good wrappers 18/64
0% of scape intact bulbs were in rough shape. 15/15

While picking I thought the scape intact, last one picked per row, seemed smallest for the most part, and the pictures reflect that. I also felt the first one (outside) was usually largest. The pics confirm that as well. The overall conditions was poor, worse than previous years. These were picked kind of late, but not that late. There were a lot of rough looking garlic plants with the scapes broken off. It may have been too dry this year to break scapes. Overall size was smaller than 2019's very wet spring.

The remaining garlic in that bed will be picked a bit later. I want to see what the added time does. There are a few with scapes removed that already look bad on that side of the bed, but most scapes are intact.

I may well move that frame elsewhere or stop planting garlic there. The bed came before the fence. The solid, 6ft high fence blocks the winter sun, so the garlic does not size up as well as it used to at that location.

I picked another patch today, July 11. It rained approx 2-1/2" on July 10th. The second big rain in a few days, after 5 weeks of bone dry.

This is one of the patches at the comm garden. Plant spacing is about the same as the box bed, but only about 12 sq ft. It receives nearly full sun over the winter and spring. The bed is local clay, deep forked and lofted, with compost added a few times over the past three years. Sweet potatoes were here last summer/fall. This garlic was planted in November and covered with 2-3" of coarse wood chips. No plastic mulch. Overall this garlic was in much better shape than the backyard box. It did get some more water compared to the box bed, since I was watering some broccoli interspersed in the patch. It also got more direct wind. The broccoli did not grow large due to being hemmed in by the garlic. Recently, the last month, the garlic has received shade from peas, summer squash, and corn. I broke off about half the scapes in early June, mostly the easy to reach ones near the path.

After picking one bulb, I decide to get the camera and document these for size comparison like I did the box bed. I ended up picking about 3/4 of the bed: most of the scapes removed, half of the scapes intact. The bed, sans a single bulb. Doesn't look like much.
One two three, a good start. The ground is moist, but not soaking wet. Good drainage for 2-1/2" yesterday. Need a full sized garden fork to lift them, my orange and black handled welded screwdriver weed puller is flexing the handle. The soil is heavy and packed. Probably from a garter snake. The top row is all scapes removed. The vertical column below has scapes attached. A few small ones, but most substantially bigger than the backyard box. CONT.

Scapes attached Picked about 3/4 of the bed Those first ones, peeled off a partly green leaf. This does make it easier, no brushing, but I hope they store well this way... Some pretty nice sized twins With scapes intact. Second from the left, Allium Fly. Allium leaf miner fly. Something like that. Little brown spot below the shovel. I've never seen them before; I have never sacrificed leaves like this to "clean" them.

Size comparison. Top is harvested scapes. Bottom is intact scapes. Is there a difference? I don't see much a difference.

Some nice garlic there for you JR. are both lots (Home/Comm garden) the same variety? Do you know which variety(ies) you have growing? Turban and Asiatic garlic bulb size is generally not affected by leaving scapes on, the other hard necks generally are. Some of the ones in the backyard garden appear to be rocamboles, is that the case?

All the same, unknown type, brought here in the late 50s or 60s. Larger size with more sun. That fly is worrisome. We have a lot that is allowed to go untouched for years, and that continues the life cycle. Seems to me there would be more affect on bulb size versus scape when nutrition or energy is more limited. I don't think either of these patches is nutrition limited. Maybe energy limited in the backyard. These do grow big long scapes if you let them. I haven't seen a 720 twist. I looked over them this year. Lots of 540s. Then I blinked and they were all straight up for the sun.

I'm amazed at all of the pictures & notes you took. Wow, that's the basis for a research paper in my opinion.

This year, i think my garlic harvest will be better than previous years. Not sure why. One example is "purple glazer" garlic. I bought it in 2016 and always had small bulbs. This year, I got many large 2.5" and larger bulbs. Wow.

Great set of pics JR. Interesting that the amount of sunshine seemed to make more difference than having scape harvested or not.
I have definitely noticed here, that beds without full sun don't produce big bulbs.

I would have preferred to have it all set up in one post, and edited first, but the forum would only allow a certain number of uploads at a time, 10 or 12 or so. I used to do stuff like this a lot using photobucket or flickr for the hosting. Then the whole thing was written in a word file and copy/pasted links and all. Unfortunately I lost interest after photobucket did their little photo ransom play a few years back. All the big posts I had on various forums went poof and I quit bothering.

And now I certainly don't feel like doing that again on tville. Probably a summary after it is all picked.

I'll probably go ahead and take pics of the rest when I harvest them. With enough daylight to do it all at once and get the pics in order. I have maybe 1/4 or 1/3 of those two patches, then a whole 'nother small patch. When I began pulling at the comm garden, I thought the scapes DID matter,but then I hit a bunch of big bulbs under scapes. The pics seem to say it didn't matter. BUT...maybe if I had picked them "on time" at end of June, there would be a more substantial difference? There are always more variables...

I put it in a txt file so it'll just be a matter of linking the pics. Here goes.

July 14
Picked the rest of the garlic at the comm garden.
05 10
11
12
13

The remaining garlic from the last patch all had the scapes intact.
16 15 17
18
20 Some more of that allium leaf miner throughout the day.
28 CONT

One looks bad, but scape was intact and leaves okay. I peeled it to check and can't see a reason for the brown. Smells and looks fine to eat. Most/All these seem to be good size. There were some 3" garlic from the scape removed group, but these are a solid 2-1/2".
30
31
32
33
34
36
37
38
39
40
42
45

Second patch at the comm garden looks okay from there. Scapes broken off on walkway side.

46 Needed a good deep fork to get under them. The roots are really solid here.
47-55 CONT

That's the front two rows dug out. Near the edge of the grass/walkway. Broken scapes are up top and produced a good size. Scapes intact on the bottom - much smaller and rough shape.
56
59
70
77
78

This is from right behind the "front rows" above. The above was about the first 9" from the grass path. Most of the rest of them dug out in this pile.

Scapes intact on left, scapes pulled on right. Some very small ones in this group. The spacing was similar to the last patch, but they were much smaller, just 30 ft away. They were more hemmed in by the back fence, the front garlic, and the agribon that was over the broccoli during spring. They surely saw less of the watering can. I also had a broccoli plant back there as well that I pulled due to very little growth, so I think the nutrition is low there, or perhaps not forked enough. There is something down under there so that I can't broadfork there as well.
Three good ones of 19 with scapes intact.
Three good ones of 5 with scapes removed.
At this spot, it looks like the scape removal led to larger bulbs.
60
62
63
64
83-86 CONT