I talked to a guy in FL once about his worm farm long ago. In a nut shell he said that earth worms are like any other wild critter in that they hang out where the environment is conducive to their growth and that if where they are becomes unsuitable, they can and will move, many feet a day, until they find a new spot. Too bad I don't remember all the specifics he rattled off about soil temp, moisture and so on. From experience here I can say they really love living in the soil under the wood chip mulch under the fruit trees and under the compost pile.

Hi, I have several suggestions.... I am 100% organic. I have made every mistake there is.... 1) Use big cloves. 2) Plant early Oct.( zone 5) 3) Take soil tests, make amendments, use huge amounts of well composted organic matter. Add worm casings to your soil as well as sand...You want a rich well drains very loose soil... 4) Space about 8 inches apart. Plant a little deeper 3 to 4 inches.. 5) Use a slow nitrogen release fertilizer which includes bone meal.... I use Epsoma Plantone as a base and add 30% feather meal for the nitrogen ( feather meal also has a large amount of dried blood in it.) I put about 1 heaping tea spoon in the hole when planting. 6) Add Mycorhizzae fungi to your hole... Ideally mix with soil and fertilizer a little so roots will grow into it...They claim there is a 21% to 50% increase in size with this fungi alone. 7) Water 1 inch of water per week.. Very important.You will not have large garlic if you do not do this. 8) Mulch heavily.... I found the ground leaves work nicley as well as straw but the best is wood chips! Yes Wood chips at about 3+ inches in thickness.. Do not let anyone tell you different.....The disadvantage is that you have to rake them back once you have harvested the garlic if you intend to replant that bed.... 9) Put 3 applications of fish emulstion down begining in March, one in April, and the final in mid May. If you make your own make sure to dilute about 1 cup per 3 gallons of water. If possible use rain water to water with. Remove all scapes as soon as they make their first curly cue. Harvest when you still see two green leaves and the rest is brown and yellow..Do not wait till the plant is totally brown and fallen over. Choose larger varieties . Please email me with your results, I am very interested. johnjohnc@att.net

"Re-reading this thread, I realized that I initially missed the significance of that comment." As did I and would appreciate the info. Got to play a bit today before the rain set in ... Patch #1 is starting to look more like a corn patch ;) Patch #2 is trying to catch up ... Patch #2 is limited to the first 2 beds from the left ... next bed over is onions and then tater patch #2. Will most likely never do this again ... but, for now, it seems pretty .... and keeps me busy.

I have recovered from the garlic disaster of 2012 to the point where I hope to be planting 12,000 premium cloves and 10,000 rounds and bulbils. Last fall I planted every last clove and bulbil that I had and ended up harvesting around 12,000 bulbs and rounds this summer, along with tens of thousands of bulbils. Ended up with a lot of undersized reject bulbs that will be used for food instead of seed stock. I plan on being much more picky this year, selecting for size. I will also get back to removing scapes next June. It is a long process having to restart from scratch... I have reacquired many varieties but my favorite one is still German Brown rocambole. Other favorites are German Red, Russian Red, German Extra Hardy, Estonian Red. My garlic planting season always starts third week in October, the season is fast approaching. :-) Happy Planting! -Tom