I have been growing garlic in north Ga. for years and although it is clay, it is not what I would call hard clay. I have never seen roots grow up. Roots grow towards water. It sound like the top soil is wetter than the deeper soil. I wonder if you are watering your plants, Kinda like when you start seeds you water from the bottom to get the roots to go deep. I mulch my garlic to help keep weeds down.. The only down side to having roots growing up would be that they will depend on getting moisture from the surface..so I would leave the mulch.

Grass clippings can harbor rust and infect your garlic crop with that disease if they are used for mulch. Both myself and a friend had this happen. No rust after we stopped using the grass clippings. Also, yes, it is normal for the feeder roots to seek out heat, moisture and nutrition in the top layer of the soil. Here where the winters are relatively mild, I believe that the roots grow all winter. My early, soft-neck varieties get pretty sad looking without a good dose of high nitrogen fertilizer in late winter or early spring. I have already fed and mulched two times this year. All-in-all, it appears that I will be having a good harvest this year if we don't have late rains as we have had the past two or three years.

I just ordered some very nice German extra hardy. I bought from the same place last year but I am still trying to bring my numbers up. There are varieties I used to have that I no longer can find. This year I am growing German, Killarney, Khabar, Russian, Brown and Asian Tempest. I am interested in other varieties, clean specimens, that are hardy in zone 4. I have German to trade and very small numbers of the list above.

I love Elephant Garlic