Harvesting garlic

It's garlic harvest time. There is an art to it... an art we have not yet mastered. The timing counts, the pulling counts, the curing counts, and we've got one great book we're using this year to get us through the process. Since temperatures have been so high, you want to be sure your garlic has not been cooked underground (if air temps are about 100, soil temps at the surface can be near 120 - it's a good thing we still have a thick mulch layer on them). You also want to be sure they are not too wet (no problem there, since it hasn't rained in weeks). And you want at least 4-6 green leaves left (the rest have browned and are drying out) so that your garlic stores well once it is cured.

We pulled a few yesterday to see how they were doing - the heads themselves are not as big as we wanted them, but the cloves are huge and perfect, about 6-8 per head, one layer around, the size of a grape tomato.