hello emmasmomma, when you you say cloves do you mean individual cloves that have been separated from the bulb or corms which are only the size of your fingernail and grow attached to the side of the bulb? if it's the former, they will naturally dry out very quickly so you'll only need to keep the in an open mesh bag in a cool dark place (not the fridge) with good air circulation. Just make sure that you check them regularly as some may have been damaged when they were separated from the basal plate which will make them more susceptible to rotting. If you can peel, slice and dehydrate them, it will help to store them longer than as cloves. I find corms too fiddly to bother eating so would just replant them in autumn which will give you rounds to replant the following year for full bulbs. However truth is I don't bother with elephant garlic any more, it's flavour is too bland for me, rocambole cloves are almost as big and much tastier:). megan

Jenny, I don't know who to feel sorrier for---your son or the garlic plants. I think both will recover just fine though. I feel kinda bad for him---clearly he was attempting to follow your instructions and it was just a matter of confusion over the location. I bet you he will never forget which bed is the asparagus bed and which one is the garlic bed....never, ever, ever. Even if your bulbs are smaller than usual this year, you still should get a harvest. The plants have lots of time to regrow their green portions and, while that regrowth may divert energy that would have gone into forming the bulbs, that doesn't mean they won't give you a harvest. Every gardening family has stuff like this happen from time to time. Sometimes these little occurrences that seem like major disasters at the time are the things you'll be remembering, talking about and laughing about 10 or 20 years later. If I had a nickle for every plant we've accidentally damaged or destroyed while doing one sort of garden task or another, I'd have a few bucks in my piggy bank. Gardening is life. In life, stuff happens. This is one of those "stuff happens" type events. It could have been worse---he could have pulled up the plants, disrupting their root systems, so at least that did not happen. Garlic is pretty resilient, and so are kids. Dawn

No need to remove the oregano flowers - but if you're harvesting your oregano, take the flowers along with the leaves - they are edible. As for Garlic: yes, you can use bought garlic bulbs to propagate it, as long as they haven't been treated with a growth retardant. Here's how it's done. Divide the bulbs and plant separate cloves directly in the ground in early autumn to mid-spring. Autumn plantings usually yield larger cloves. Plant about 2cm deep (deeper if winters are severe), pointed end up, and about 15cm apart. Elephant Garlic should be planted about 7-8cm deep and 30cm apart. Forcing the cloves into the soil will delay root development, so be gentle. Choose the largest cloves for the largest bulbs later. Small cloves grow into unsegmented "rounds"; these can be replanted to grow into larger bulbs with the usual count of 7-10 cloves. In warmer climates, refrigerate the bulbs for several months before planting for best results. Garlic is a heavy feeder and, to grow big bulbs, you need highly fertile soil, well supplied with all major nutrients. Full sun is best. Because high humus content and good drainage are also very important, adding compost is advisable. Garlic prefers a pH 6.0-7.0. Plant in full sun, in good light, moist but well-drained soil. Consistent soil moisture is necessary during the bulbing period, but when nearing maturity, somewhat dry soil is best. Bulbs may rot in heavy, wet soils. Keep the area around the plants clear of weeds, but be careful not to damage the shallow roots. Traditionally garlic cloves are planted on the shortest day of the year and harvested on the longest. The following summer, stop watering when the leaves turn yellow and break tops over at the base to speed up drying. After 2 to 3 weeks, when broken tops are brown and dry, carefully lift the bulbs and sun-dry them for a few days. Remove flower stalks as they appear. Garlic will tolerate frosts to Â12C for short periods. Do not grow garlic where other members of the onion family have been grown in the past 3 years.

You are welcome! Yes, I've just been noticing my scapes just recently too - sometimes it's hard to tell because it often looks like another leaf, but it's more slender and does the whole pig-tail curl thing. Delicious - this will definitely be a garlic scape pesto year for me. I've been mastering growing garlic in containers over the past few years, so I am getting pretty good at it. What I've been working on is having another short-term crop (or annual flower) that I can grow in between harvest (end of July) and next planting (end of October or November). I'm still working on that one. I did plant some annual seeds in between the garlic, so I'm seeing how that will work - they really haven't started to come up yet. You will love eating your own garlic!