I planted a half pound of garlic 3-4 weeks ago and only have 2 sprouted. I'm afraid that's all the garlic I'm going to get :(
Hope yours does better!

Oh, no. Hope they all come up. What garlic did you plant?

Now some of my garlic bulbils also come up.

I can't remember what kind I planted. I bought it from Baker Heirloom Seeds and it appeared to be good garlic. I think I planted it too deep.

This is my first try at growing garlic. I obtained 4 bulbs of garlic from the supermarket, so my guess is that the bulbs are softneck garlic. On Octobe 20, 2014, I separated the cloves and planted 4 rows in a 5X5 garden and govered the garlic patch with 4-5 inches of shredded leaves. On 11/9/2014 I noticed that 3 shoots of garlic had grown through the leaf mulch. Will the cold of winter damage these plants?

ValVal, I think you should be fine. Just wait for a while longer if you buried them deep. They are bulbs. Some of my daffodils were buried 7" deep but they still come up every year.

CharlieBoring, garlic is tough plant. They should be able to make it through winter. 4-5" mulch is plenty. Hope your bed has good drainage.

I've been successful with garlic previously. The shoots came up and survived the cold winters here in Ohio. They might get a little wilted but come March they spring right back to life again! Good luck and hope you have a great harvest next year.

I planted harfneck garlic over a month ago, and covered with 2-3" mulch as was suggested on this forum, I planted them kinda deep too iirc. Nothing has come up, I wasn't thinking anything would be likely until spring? It was fairly warm but ground has been frozen solid the last few days. Only things still green in my garden are peas which aren't doing much and the asparagus ferns.

I do not think the ground is frozen yet, maybe just the very top layer. You can still dig the soil.

Yours should be still fine. The flowering bulbs can be buried like 10" or so. But too much water can be a problem if buries too deeply.

My garlic shoots are just 1" or so. It is good that they did not grow so much now. This is just like my daffodils.

My ground was hard as a rock.. not sure how deep it penetrates but digging would have been difficult. It'll melt in the next couple of days. We had some nights in the teens and days in the 20's.

And you are in Zone 6B?

I do not believe we'll have had anything below 20F yet....

I am in 7 (N. VA) and we have had down to 18 degrees two nights.

Location is much more important than zone. The zones are merely the low temps that might happen during winter and are meant only for the winter hardiness of perennials. For most everything else they're irrelevent. Zone 6 is huge and the temp won't be the same throughout.

Back on topic, I planted my garlic a month ago and they haven't sprouted. Sometimes they sprout before the ground freezes and sometimes they don't but it doesn't matter either way. Now if they don't sprout in spring then you should be worried.

Rodney

Rodney, when should I expect them to sprout in the spring?

I think it depends on how deep you bury the cloves and the climate. I normally bury the cloves to 2x the size of the cloves. Some do it deeper because of the colder climate and the possibility of small animals.

I believe garlic comes out a bit earlier than daffodils in spring.

Peter- Shortly after the ground thaws in Spring and the temps start increasing. Possibly in March, April at the latest.

And yeah, depth probably does play a part in when it sprouts. As does the temps when it was planted, if it was mulched and how thick the mulch is, and how soon the freeze comes in Fall.

To go along with the comment I made in my previous post, my garlic were planted about 1.5-2 inches deep and mulched with a few inches of a mix of shredded leaves and grass clippings immediately after planting.

Rodney

I obviously had not looked at them recently, cause I went out there today, and there were about 10 sprouts sticking an inch or two past my mulch, which had settled down to about an inch. I added some shredded leaf mulch to bring it back up and protect the sprouts. It was a beautiful nearly 60 degree day.

I planted about 40 cloves though... hopefully the rest are on their way?

Garlic doesn't have to sprout in the fall, at least not in zone 6. I actually found it is better if it goes under snow without sprouting - it grows the roots first, when weather is relatively cold, then kind of hibernate till spring and pop up as soon as spring starts, sometimes even under the snow. At least mine is underground yet and I am happy about it - don't like to see it shivering without snow cover with freezing temperatures.

It probably does not make any difference at this point. I grow some garlic in pots indoors. I pulled some for fresh eating. The greens are about 10" tall and I can still see the original garlic cloves attached to the roots. So the original cloves are not spent. So they make some food from the limited green top growth. Not much energy is used.

I planted some bad cloves already sending green shoots. I planted them instead of throwing them away, just want to see how they grow. I'm just curious as to how they will grow in spring.

What I worry about when greens are above the soil without snow cover in a well bellow freezing weather is possibility to the clove itself to freeze out. Frozen greens could be conductors of the cold from the air to the clove itself.

The ground around the clove is going to freeze in the dead of winter, I don't see how any amount of mulch is going to prevent that.... frost depth is well below 2 feet in northern zones.

The greens appear to be continuing to grow, I see some peeking out through the snow.

There are plants (including garlic) that can withstand some frozen ground; snow bells and tulips come to mind. I am not sure what the limits are for most garlic varieties to withstand frozen ground, but my thoughts are that there is probably a time limit of frozen ground and a temperature level that they can take. The mulch serves to help limit the time that the ground around the cloves is frozen and possibly keep the temperature at a higher level than would otherwise be experienced.