Harvesting and Curing Garlic This Way Makes It Last for Months—Here’s How

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 Did you know garlic can last several months after harvest? Without canning, freezing, or dehydrating? The secret lies in what type of garlic you grow, and how well it’s cured and stored. Follow this step-by-step guide to help you harvest your crop at just the right time and keep the bulbs fresh in storage.

Garlic
Garlic Curing

You waited seven, maybe nine months, for all that homegrown garlic to finish growing. Now that you’ve dug it all up, you want to savor it for as long as possible until the next garlic crop is ready.

This is when curing becomes your friend.

Curing is the process of letting your garlic dry down in preparation for long-term storage. Curing and storing garlic allows you to enjoy the flavor of your summer harvest well into winter.

One of my favorite things about garlic is that it still stays fresh long after it’s been plucked from the ground without traditional preservation methods. No pickling, no canning, no freezing. Just a simple head of garlic that looks and tastes the same as the day you pulled it.



Does garlic have to be cured?

Garlic does not need to be cured. It’s edible right out of the ground.

But if you want it to stay fresh in the pantry for a good long while, you have to take it through the process of curing—essentially just letting it dry. As the garlic dries, the skin shrinks and turns papery, forming a protective barrier against moisture and mold.

In this dried down state, under optimal conditions, cured garlic can store for several months after harvest (which means you can use the garlic cloves from your garlic harvest as seed for the following year’s crop).



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