January is a bit too late to be planting garlic here in California. You should have planted them in September or October. Sometimes very large cloves are actually "siamese twins" and they will have two sets of foliage. I am growing Korean Red which seems to have that characteristic more than the others I grow.

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

Well it's done...I planted about 100 bulbs all around my flower beds, garden...anywhere I had free dirt space :) They are all the same variety, of which I have no idea...but they came from the farmers market nearby...so I can only hope that they are worthwhile...they sure tasted good to me...and the bulbs? cloves? were all very good sized. I discovered as I was digging in one of my front flower beds plopping down cloves here there and everywhere (5-6 inches apart), it is healthier than I thought...I pulled up a plant that had a BIG OLE fat worm attached to it...it looked like a baby snake!! that is a great thing to see in your dirt....Hope it doesn't eat my garlic bulbs ;) thanks for the responses...I'll be excited to see what comes. I'll be one of those eager posters who you will hear from again in the spring, when I have garlic growing everywhere!!!

Sancho, I cut back last year quite a bit on the varieties I grew for harvest this season. Will be trying a few new for 013 harvest. I'm selecting mainly those varieties with 8 or fewer cloves and that have large size cloves. The larger the cloves the easier they normally are to peel. I grow an Elephant selection from CO that is normally huge and has a mild flavor. Metechi and German Hardneck are two more that have done well here most years. The bulb size doesn't have to be as big if a variety only has 3-4 cloves to have large clove size. Chamisal Wild and Ayacucho are both varieties that I grew for the first time this past season and they look good. They are dry now and I need to get all of the garlic trimmed up and out of the heat. Last year due to work conditions I didn't label all of the varieties when I dug them. I didn't label what I felt were bulbs with small cloves. I got fooled. After they dried and I started to use them I found several with large cloves. I planted them as assorted unknown last fall. Have some very nice bulbs with nice cloves from them. I had plated 22 varieties the fall before so not for sure what they are. I really don't care as long as they do well I will continue to plant those with large cloves. Khabar had some nice bulbs this year but wasn't real consistent. Music didn't do well here. But I planted it a few weeks later. So will replant a few earlier in the season this fall to give them a fair chance. Among those I'm adding to grow this fall is Penasco Blue. A NM heirloom. I've found that the heirlooms from this general area many times will perform better at least from the start. Some varieties will gradually adapt to an area after being grown there a few years. Estonian Red and the Elephant are both must grows every year. Metechi is fast becoming one. And if some of the new varieties I mentioned continue to do well they will join them. Jay