Well not exactly in your neck fo the woods, but pretty close. I'm near Erie, PA. Like any garden item, some mature earlier/later than others. For me, it has usually been sometime in late June when I have noticeable leaf die back. Harvest has usally occured for me over the first 2 weeks or so of July. Again, sometimes a bit earlier, sometimes later. Using the leaves as a guide is excellent. As far as when to cut off watering, I usually try to guess when I am a week away from lifting the bulbs, and stop then. I also keep an eye on the weather forecast to try and get them up before a rain. My experience has shown a week early is better than a week late.

Hi Carol , I live in Louisiana and love to grow garlic. My sister lives in Hendersonville Tn, and they grow garlic also with no problems. Look , will tell you what I know , and you can go from there . I would just go to the grocery store , buy a bulb of garlic and break it apart , plant it in the flower bed , it is a beautiful plant and will grace any flower garden !I plant about Sept and then dig it the following July , after the bloom has turned brown. When it is dug , there are little brown things left in the ground ,and it will produce a garlic plant in the spring ! So dear one , you never have to plant in that space again , just be sure and dig it each fall , and reap the harvest . ok , now for a little info , when you buy garlic it is in a big Bulb , you break that apart and you have cloves , when you plant the cloves , in late summer , it will multiply and so when you dig it , there will be the bulbs again , also you will find in the ground ,balls bigger than a marble , that is also garlic, and I cook with that also . Then like I told you , there are little brown garlic things that are to hard to cut up , so leave them in the ground for next Julys harvest . Unless you are as crazy about garlic as I am , you will only need about 2 bulbs of garlic when you buy at the grocery . Now , I dig the garlic at the last of July and hang the stalks in the rafter of the shed so they can dry and don't touch anything . When they are dry , I break off the roots and dirt , cut off the stalk and put them in a tupperware container in the freezer . I love having fresh garlic on hand , but grow too much , so have put them in the freezer for years now , with no problem . Do not wash the garlic untill ready to cook . Remember your other flower plants and roses love garlic to grow close to them, keeps the bugs out , or so I think .The garlic stalk and bloom will remind you of Allium .... ALL the luck in the world to you , and hope to hear next July that you have a Bumper crop of garlic. Leta

People claim that garlic "adapts" to a zone over three years; that is to say that the largest heads and best average sizes will not be achieved until three years because the garlic is adapting to your specific climate and soil. I slightly disagree. Every year I take the best cloves from the biggest heads and replant those. So, I am choosing the reproduce only the biggest and strongest. That's kind of like natural selection, but I am doing it myself. My judgement says what will work not survival of the fittest in nature. Every year I am also learning more about planting, amending, tending and harvesting. So, I would say that after about three years, a typical garlic (fiend) grower would have done selection and experience to a level where most of the garlic that he or she is planting will achieve close to its genetic potential. I do not believe that the garlic itself changes, only which cloves are reproduced and which are eaten.

Hi Quirkpod, I have just pruned off my scapes per the instructions that came with my bulbs. This is a portion of an article I found online. Hope this helps! HARVESTING Many people make a big mistake at this point. They wait too long to harvest. Keeping garlic in the ground beyond a certain point does not result in bigger bulbs, but rather dried out, split and nearly useless ones. When to harvest? When the lower third to half of the leaves have turned brown, but there are still mostly green leaves higher on the plant, it's time to harvest. Others suggest harvesting when the hardneck scapes are standing straight up but before the pods containing the bulbils open up. You can always test dig one or two plants. You should be able to see the shape of the cloves beginning to bulge through the wrapper. On the High Plains, depending on the weather, harvest can begin as early as the first week of July. There is also a two to three week difference in the harvest dates of the several varieties. So watch you plants carefully. To get the bulb out of the ground, don't just try to pull them. The stalk will break. You must dig, using a pitchfork or the like in order to loosen the soil. Then you can lift the entire plant out of the ground. Don't let the bulb stay in the sun very long as it will sun scald, which reduces its quality. For our larger fields here at Yucca Ridge our very clever neighbor Bob has modified an ancient potato picker which actually does an excellent job at extracting the plants. (It really helps to move in next to a guy who likes to weld things and is so clever he makes you feel quite inferior, which of course you can't admit to him....... why am I getting into this?) Incidentally, many people wonder if the scapes should be cut in order to increase bulb size? For elephants the answer is definitely yes. For hardnecks, yes appears to be the correct answer also, although some varieties seem less affected by leaving the scape attached. Cut them generally just before the scape has fully extended (or the coils in the Rocamboles have started uncurling). When still young, the scapes are considered good eating by some.