Onions and Garlic

My onion harvest

My garlic harvest

You might say there has been a learning curve to my gardening ... a big one! Before starting to homestead, my notion of growing food was limited to what I saw as a child -- plant in April/May after the danger of frost was over. Then tend, water, harvest and eat throughout the summer. Once September rolled around, the work was done until the next spring.

So the idea of planting in the fall for a spring harvest was definitely thinking outside the box for me. It's hard to teach an old dog new tricks, but I had faith that if the garden centers were selling onion sets in October, it must be the way to do it. So I planted 3 rows of onions and 2 rows of garlic last fall. The green tops stayed healty during the winter. Go figure. And then the question arose -- what next? Here is a photo guide of what I learned:

Harvest onions when they start to show and the tops fall over

Harvest garlic when the leaves begin to yellow and the bulb is a good size

Support the bottom of the plant as you pull it out

Garlic roots are deeper and stronger than onion roots

Dust off the dirt and dry in the sun before storing in a cool, dark place