In 25 years of growing elephant garlic, I have never seen the flowers produce seeds, so I say ignore that comment - just won't happen. Although I cut and eat most of the scapes from my elephant garlic, I always leave a number of them because I like seeing the tall flowers around my garden. You definitely need to dig it up once leaves are yellowing (I usually let about half the plant yellow), and definitely dig from under the garlic to recover all the corms (hard cloves growing around the outside of each bulb) that you can for replanting. That is a really good way to significantly increase your stock of garlic, though it takes a couple of years before they make nice heads. I always store the garlic in a cool place (essentially in the house with AC) once it is dry and cured a bit, and I wait until the fall, mid-October here in Z7, to replant. The great thing about elephant garlic is that it lasts through the winter very well.

I've been growing this stuff for many, many years. I love these things. First, you always plant garlic in the fall, September or October is usually fine. It overwinters great - always good to get a little growth going before it gets chilly. By the time you are moving in July, you should have harvested all of the garlic, probably by late May, early June, in zone 8. Just like other garlics, once about half the tops are yellowing and fading they can be harvested. Dig carfully from underneath (rather than just pulling up) in order to collect all of those little buttons you can find. I like seeing the tall elephant garlic flowers so I always keep a few to look at, but for the most part I remove the stalks before they get too large. I eat those scapes I cut off as well, sauteed and cooked into an omelet or something. I really don't want the plant expending energy on the flowers when I'm trying to get garlic. The garlic you dug up looks great, but it will be even better after about another month of growing. The buttons: I save all the buttons and smaller round garlic heads(without cloves) to plant in the fall. The butons will take maybe three or four years to make a large head of garlic. I started getting a little frustrated with the buttons because they won't all necessarily sprout the year you plant them, but that doesn't mean they won't sprout the next year. To get around the problem of having random garlics sprouting when I've dug in more compost, etc., I started planting all the buttons in cheap gallon plastic pots that I bury in the garden. That way, when a number of them sprout and are 4 to 6 inches tall, I dump the pot out in my empty wheelbarrow, separate the sprouted buttons, then return the potting soil, unsprouted buttons, and new buttons, and put it right back in the garden. With the buttons, I don't even necessarily stick with the traditional garlic planting times, putting the newly dug ones right into the pots. The sprouts I separate and plant probaly 4" apart in rows, knowing they will not achieve full size in that first year. At harvest time end of May/early June, these will be what I call "rounds." The rounds will be planted in the fall for the next years' monster heads. I've been doing this for a while, so I have enough going that I eat just about all of the monster heads that make nice big cloves. Those I allow to dry and cure a bit at harvest, clean them up, brush off dirt, and put them in a cardboard box. I also harvest quite a few Rounds - I take whole folded newspaper sections, staple along two edges (with the fold on the third edge it makes a bag), put a "not-too-crowded" amount of rounds in each bag(maybe a pound or two), and staple the open end shut. I label it "Rounds" with my sharpie, and store until fall. Because 6, 8, 10 sheets of newspaper blocks light, and because I let them cure and dry some before packaging, removing excess dirt and roots, I've actually had some of my stored garlic last more than a year to a planting season, though not something desired. I've also stored the buttons that way as well, but I've gone away from it because if they can last in the ground for two or three years without sprouting, why should I wait until fall to get them in the ground. I just like having control, so I use the buried pots. Eating and handling a very large garlic clove is no different than how you would deal with a large onion you don't eat all of in one sitting. I have a very small covered container with a tight fitting lid that I may peel several cloves and put in. If I only use half of a particularly large clove, I just put the other half back in the container for next time. These are very mild compared to regular garlic, so I use a lot in most things. I love it though. I grow other garlics, and like them just fine, but dealing with the little cloves will often just take me back to my elephant garlic that I have been continually propagating, starting in Texas, to Virginia, to Maryland, to New Jersey, and back to several different houses here in Virginia, since the mid-1980's. Hope that helps.

I am going to add something here that is my opinion but not universally accepted. IMO spring planted cloves can produce nearly full sized bulbs and scapes if cold treated before planting. IIRC that would be a 40/40 or 40 days at 40 degrees which can be done in a refrigerator, provided there are no ethyline producing fruits, etc. also in that refrigerator. There is an old family old wives' tale in my family to plant potatoes on Good Friday, which this year is only a little past the middle of March and very likely our ground here will still be frozen. But you can plant onion plants and spring garlic bulbs about the same time as you plant your potatoes. Cold treatment for that would start about 40 days before ground thaw and can go on beyond 40 days for some little while at least with little problem. I am thinking of getting one of those cheap apartment sized frigs just for that. I certainly have a corner of the kitchen and an outlet I can devote to that. All the different ways one can handle garlics just has me in some sort of awe! One other thing: I found a relatively easy way to handle small garlic bulbs with their very small cloves. Simply break them up and strip off the dry wrappers. Then put the unpeeled cloves directly into the garlic press figuring at least two times the volume you would normally use for peeled cloves (IOW load the press up good) and just press them that way. I always reload the wrappers and give those a good second crush and then discard what is left. I do not like to peel tiny garlic cloves and now I simply don't. So I use a whole very small bulb instead of one large clove and throw some little bit of wrapper out. Works for me. Did I say how much I dislike peeling garlic cloves!

My egyptian onions will set a cluster of topsets and then grow a second cluster atop that one. Sometimes there are flowers mixed in but they never seem to develop all the way. The second cluster of topsets is always smaller so I usually just snap them off early on. I haven't done a side by side comparison to confirm but I feel like snapping off that second, smaller cluster puts more energy towards the first and results in larger topsets. I only grew elephant garlic for a few years and that was several years ago. I always removed the scape so can't comment on how it affects bulb size. Rodney