I think depending on the year, garlic can probably be planted with good results even going well into december. Some of my later batches which were planted right around thanksgiving are already taking root very well now, and even as far north as upstate NY, it looks like the soil temperature will stay well in the 40s through most of december based on the LT forecast. In previous years, I've found that late planted garlic that doesn't even sprout will turn into rounds, and early planted garlic which gets up near 1ft tall doesn't get destroyed as long as there is a good layer of leaf mulch and snow always accompanies extreme cold temperatures. In any case, these cloves will have good established root system, and be stratified to form nice big bulbs the following year. Given that when I dig through the snow and the soil is not frozen underneath it even in the middle of January when there's a few feet of snow, I believe that root growth does occur. Every time I've planted garlic in the spring, I get much smaller bulbs so I think the only important thing is that they go through the natural cold stratification that is brought upon by winter. Here is a link that might be useful: My garlic growing blog

Anecdotal advice is good. For me, other kinds of advice are good too, since I've had to grow in containers, and have had both failures and successes. I'd like know I will be questioning again next year. Four years ago, I got some great feedback on this thread. https://www.chowhound.com/post/peeling-garlic-week-planting-1041941 Specifically; "Glad to hear you got them back, but as for that fungus control advice, I have to say "hmm". While I've been growing plants one way or the other since I was a kid and have done a fair amount of (preferably technical) reading on plant diseases over the years, I'm certainly no "expert", but for whatever it's worth, honestly, it questionable to me, based on over-generalizations and to some extent, misunderstandings. Not harmful, but of questionable utility. To sart with, seaweed extract is great stuff, but has no fungicidal properties, and for that matter doesn't provide much if iany sort of "energy boost" either. It has very little in the way of simple carb content, which is the only source of "energy", other than sunlight, that growing green plants can utilize. (And beside, "energyy" is the last thing plant propagation material like garlic cloves need, since they bulk of the clove exists "for that every purpose" (so to speak).. If fresh, seaweed extract does however have useful amounts of (both growth and rooting) plant hormones. and a fair slew of useful micronutrients. As for the baking soda and rubbing alcohol, that's where I really start to wonder... Frankly, it sounds pretty dubious, but in this specific instance (with unsprouted garlic cloves), I don't think it'll hurt either, as long as you thoroughly rinse after the baking soda soak and don't let them soak in the alcohol for long. Large amounts of sodium are NOT something most plants even tolerate well, and while sodium bicarbonate does appear to have limited fungicidal properties, at least against some, particularly foliar, fungi but , one has to be very careful to balance the effective "dose" against the potential toxicity of the sodium, and it's certainly not something you'd want to ever water in to soil, rather than using it as a foliar spray in carefully controlled amounts to avoid an excess being taken up by plants' roots (in this case, of course, there aren't any roots to soak it up, which is why I don't think it'd be harmful). As for the alcohol. I really don't know anything about that as an antifungal agent. I've certainly never heard of it being particularly effective against fungi, nor widely used for that purpose (although it is a very common, if only moderately effective and potentially deleterious ingredient in homemade "bug spray"). it would certainly be harmful is allowed to soak long enough to really penetrate the cloves, and I'm really not sure just a few minutes will necessarily be effective against fungi, especially one that, at a brief glance, anyways, seems pretty tough like the one that causes white rot. Seriously speaking, I think you'd be much better off searching ag extension websites, or maybe doing web searches using the specific word "fungicide" as well as the scientific name of the white rot fungus (Sclerotium cepivorum) for the most up-to-date, effective treatments and preventatives. If the answer really were as simple as baking soda and rubbing alcohol, I don't think the world's garlic growers would have an impending pandemic on their hands..." Thanks Mike G! Couldn't find any double blinded studies but her are some other opinions supporting some form of prs-soaking. https://keeneorganics.com/garlic-fertilization-soak/ https://www.themarthablog.com/2017/11/planting-garlic-at-my-farm.html https://www.garlicana.com/resources-links/growing-instructions/ https://www.gourmetgarlicgardens.com/planting-and-growing-the-garlic.html https://www.groeat.com/soaking-garlic-before-planting There are some nice ideas from Pam Dawling, author of Sustainable Market Farming, in a link entitled "Organic Growers School › P.-...PDF Growing Great Garlic - Organic Growers School" but its a PDF and I can't seem to link it. This is part of it. Sustainable Market Farming Among other things, It says "Many of us do nothing special with the cloves before planting, but if you have pest and disease problems, use pre-plant soaking treatments, usually done the night before planting. Some growers find they get better yields from treated cloves even if no problem was obvious."

thanks for your suggestion of staking them. But would the stems eventually grow strong enough to support the every growing heavy leaves or would the plants have to be staked for the rest of their lives? Someone suggested that I cut the plant down a few inches so I am not sure which is the better way.

Hi Waleed, It is really hard to determine what could be causing your tomato plants to bend down since you say that you had success growing it before...There are a number of factors actually...it could be because of pH problem, temp, nutrient deficiency and all sorts...please give us more info on it and as grizzman said, it would help if you post a picture ;)