Go ahead and plant them. They may just become "rounds" instead of full heads of cloves, but will grow to be bigger nonetheless. Garlic is a perennial, and as such, many varieties require a winter or dormant period. When planting the cloves in autumn, they need to be planted prior to the ground freezing in order for their root systems to grow. Throughout the winter, the garlic's root system is constantly soaking up nutrients for spring. Garlic only needs to be pulled up and replanted when one plans to divide it. Garlic is more than happy to be left in the ground year after year. Many people leave garlic in the ground, never harvesting the bulbs, but harvesting the greens instead. Good luck.

Wow, that's quite a garlic harvest there! Congrats! Anybody know of a good online source for garlic bulbs this time of year? My local nursery is out of them and the online sources I checked won't ship them until February. I did find one source on Amazon but they want $1.59 per bulb. That seems a bit pricey, but then, beggars can't be choosers.

Thank you so much!! Monday night, it was weirdly warm, like 55 degrees. Although I have a lot of work to get my garden beds ready for spring planting, I ran out to them, grabbed the only garlic I've gotten so far -- a generic 'italian garlic' bag from walmart bulbs area -- cleared off a 1.5'x3.3' space and planted about 65 cloves (1" deep, 3" apart). The instructions didn't tell me which direction to point the cloves and I forgot!! Crap. So... I pointed most of them downward but some side and up figuring at least a few will work. ;-) I added a little extra soil to the top to make sure it was a solid inch above them as we are going to have a few major freezes (we're having one now) before spring arrives. I figured worst-case scenario, maybe I'd have fat green onions of garlic or something, even that would probably be edible, but from your notes it sounds like I should get at least a few heads, even if small, and even if a pretty generic type. That's wonderful. :-) Here's a possibly important question: how do alliums react to being transplanted? Come spring when weather is warm but not hot, I'm going to be planting everything else (in the beds I need to amend but for that little tiny garlic area, heh). I'm also going to have a bunch of tomatoes and peppers I'd love to put garlic around in containers as well as the beds. (See my Swingset Garden plans.) Do you think it would kill or stunt the garlic if, around then, I dug it up, amended the whole bed including that area, and then replanted, some there and most around the other plants in the beds or containers? Garlic is pretty good for dissuading critters. Best, PJ

Nice to know about garlic. I decided last week-end that I should start growing my own garlic, and I think I will follow the suggestion of planting anything that has green sprouts. I still have some garlic that I got at a Farmers' Market (Mar Vista), and so I will plant some of that. Does garlic need any special soil requirements? I have some Society Garlic in my yard, and so I assume if that does okay that regular garlic should as well. Should I plant it in pots to get better soil/drainage? My soil does not drain well. Lars