I know and that's what makes this a difficult choice. I really don't know if I should pull them (or at least some of them) if they are all thriving. Right now they are staying put. Suppose at some point things change and it becomes apparent that some re-work needs to be done. What is the latest I could possible get away with planting seed directly in my beds and still manage to get decent production before the Fall?

I don't think it would be before the skins encases the bulbs, if anything it would be after. As the leaves die the paper encasing the bulbs dries, so if there is no longer any paper it was either too late or possibly as you said too much water. As the plants did not look like they were dying back, it was logical to not try to dig them out earlier. The early variety of garlic I grow in Southern California is ready to pick in April, although some needs until May. If you plan on growing the same variety you might want to try just digging around a plant earlier on to see how it looks under the ground even if the plant does not seem to be dying back yet. If you do it carefully you can put back the dirt and the bulb will continue growing. And you can still eat the garlic you have picked, it just might not store as well, or try to plant the cloves again so no total loss.

I wouldn't fertilize at this time since the plant is stressed. I would wait until you sees signs of improvement or fertilize VERY lightly. What I would do is just as you thought with the wick. Good thinking by the way. Use a wick and let the wick pull the moisture out of your pot faster than it has been, helping it to dry out faster, by setting your pot in something so that the wick hangs. If you are growing in plastic, it is farely easy to judge when to water. If in a clay pot, I would use a wooden dowel of some sort and wait until it comes out farely dry after pushing it into the root zone to get you through to the repot. I find that my trees are at their peek right about the middle of May to June. If it were my tree, I would hold off until then when the tree shows remarkable signs of improvement and growth. Good luck and if you need anymore help, feel free to ask us. Mike

Dawn, I too often wonder how our ancestors made it. My kids were the first of our family's generation to have been born in Oklahoma, but my husband's parents were born here and raised their families here. His mother told me stories about how hard life was. She said when a grass fire got started, all you could really do was just stand there and watch it consume everything in its path. With only a well to draw water from, all they could do was dig trenches and try to beat it down with gunny sacks. They lost everything they had many times, to fire and flood. Miraculously, they were never hit by a tornado. Can you imagine how discouraging it must've been to live like that? Some of the pictures I have of my husband's grandparents show the entire family all lined up in front of a little wood shanty. DH's grandfather died of gangrene after having a leg accidentally cut off in a farming accident, leaving his grandmother with nine children. The eldest was DH's dad, who was about 18, and the youngest was less than a year old. I remember not having air-conditioning -- or even fans! When I was little, we lived in a two storey old farmhouse not far from Humboldt, KS. We had a one-room schoolhouse about a mile away, but my siblings that went to high school rode the bus to Elsmore. When my mother would describe where we lived, she would say it was "out by Leanna". I never knew where Leanna was. Anyway, in the summer the house would get incredibly hot. We spent a lot of time on the front porch then, but there was still cooking and canning to do, and that had to be done inside. At night, we would spread "pallets" on the ground and sleep under the stars. It was OK, but I always hated it because the bugs would crawl on my ears and I was deathly afraid they were going to go inside my ears and get inside my brain! Funny what a 6-year-old will think. I would panic and start to scream and my poor mom would take me inside and put me to bed there. I remember every now and then turning the pillow over because it would be cooler on the under side. We had rain all night last night, and early, early in the morning yesterday. Last night it just poured. It thundered so hard it shook the house. It's almost 9:00 and it's still raining off and on. It's getting to the point where I don't even look to see how many inches we have, and I almost don't even want to talk about it anymore. I sure wish we could send you some of this. HWY 123 is closed now. It always floods, as the ditches aren't very deep and it's very close to the Caney River. If it keeps on like this, little Coon Creek will jump its banks and then HWY 75 will be closed, too, which will cut us off from Bartlesville. That doesn't happen very often, or for very long, though. There are a couple of other ways to get to Bartlesville from here using country roads, but they usually close off before HWY 75 does. According to Mesonet, we have 60% chance of rain for the remainder of the day and 50% chance tomorrow. I guess I won't be digging in the garden much today.