Yes Amaryll: I agree. I never soak freshly bought bulbs before planting. The soil provides more than enough humidity to hydrate the roots sufficiently. I did not experience any disadvatage. I like the idea that these dried roots are remoistened slowly / "sparingly" (is that the correct term ?!) - and it is more practical. My only pretreatment is to cut away all completely dried roots using sharp scissors for that prupose. I put more emphasize in very carefull planting. That includes that I hold the bulb and its roots respectively in the nearly empy pot so that the roots are hanging as far as possible not-bent. Then I fill the pot gradually up with coco peat substrate - simply unbeatable jusqu'Ã ce que someone finds something still better. I distrbute the soil carefully by knocking on the pot wall etc. -all the time having the bulb suspended in my one hand until the basal plate is covered. Meanwhile, being so consequent in my reflection I do not even follow any more the Inglishmaen's suggestion: "Water well then sparingly - no; I stuff the uppermoist layer of soil a little bit so that it won't dry out so quickly. I put the pot on a saucer and apply approx 100 mL of lukewarm water for a 2L substrate stuffing volume - which - *shllllllrrrp* is quickly absorbed. In our region the fungus gnat terrorism has meanwhile gotten so disastrous that I always spray the substrate surface with a ready for use insecticidal agent with immediate and prolonged (remanent) effect. Taking the opportunity I also spray the bulb's surface, too, But only very little and carefully on the "head": The new growth and the florets which emerge between the leaf bases might be damaged if the solution runs deeply inside the bulb. The bulb spraying potects against bulb scale mites which finally cause this famous red blotch I wish you good success and - never let the bulb surface become wet Hans-Werner

If they are in a gallon pot of soil, they just need watered in the pot, planted, and watered in. :-) Do not remove the soil if possible, you will likely damage feeder roots. BTW, it's not *that* huge of a deal if you do accidentally damage the feeder roots - they come back. Sometimes the soil falls off when you are planting (I hate that!), but the rose usually makes it through just fine with good care. I have soaked the whole pot when I bought some roses on sale that were very dehydrated - but that's an exceptional case where soaking was obviously needed. Cheers, Michelle

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."

Soaking garlic in a vinegar / seaweed / baking soda bath followed by an alcohol soak has been known to decrease the chance of fungus and mites infesting garlic plants.