Hard neck or soft neck garlic? Oddly, October 30 is more or less when one would plant garlic. (At least for me. I'm in Zone 5.) I've never tried planting garlic in May but I imagine you'll at least have small bulbs. If they were hard neck, which I find works better for me, you can get bigger bulbs by cutting off the scapes (about the top third of the neck and the "flower" if they grow. The normal time to do this would be mid-June but I think that might be too early since you've just planted them. Good luck. There's a whole forum for onions and garlics, incidentally. Minda

In most places they are harvested in late fall/winter. You may have very cold winters judging by your zone, which means the ground is frozen early and stays frozen into early spring. As long as the ground is not frozen parsnips can be harvested. You would have to plant early enough for them to size up before the ground becomes a frozen tundra. In most parsnip growing areas (Europe, northern North America) , planting as soon as the ground can be worked. They are biennials so they seed the second year. Those left over winter will seed with the coming of long days. If you are in zone 3, I don't think fall planting (October, November, December) would be a great idea.

Hi! You'll definitely want to check out www.territorialseed.com an OR company - they have a great print winter catalog with growing hints. Their web site has a special winter gardening section. Per their grow chart, you can still direct seed Arugula, spring cabbage, carrots, corn salad, spring peas/favas, lettuce, mustard greens, and radishes. And of course garlic! Having said that, the last couple of years I've been experimenting with fall/winter gardens. Arugula does great. Have not had luck with the overwintering crops planted in July/August like cabbage and broccoli - they get all chewed up by slugs. Fava beans and peas croaked from the cold. I am sure I am colder than you, though. So, other successes planted this late are: lettuces/greens. Some of these will grow slowly all winter under plastic cover, and burst into growth in early Feb. Some, like Arugula, Cracoviensis lettuce, Siberian Kale, will grow enough, if you plant enough, to harvest enough leaves for salad - or at least additives to store-bought. Beets, carrots planted earlier do great left in the ground fall/winter. Minus is going into the garden in the dark after work when it is raining to harvest root crops out of the mud LOL! I continue to experiment. This year I am seeing if I can get snow peas to bear under plastic this fall.

Well, I often do here in Michigan, and several times have had a much nicer fall crop than a spring crop. Should be even easier in your climate. For me, right NOW is the ideal planting time -- around the 20th to 25th of July. My average first frost is October 11th, or about 2 1/2 months from now. Maybe you can extrapolate from that. Id' think because of your summer heat, you'd want to wait maybe about 2 more weeks, then your harvest would push into later October -- you generally have very nice, prolonged falls there from what I understand.