i myself would not buy seed off of ebay. you never know what your going to get. i get my stuff from parkseed or harrisseed company.
your region requires hardneck garlic which you can buy in any gormet shop. just buy the bulb and break them up and plant after your last frost. when it is nice and cold out.
i grow softneck garlic here in texas. you can grow softneck garlic were you are, but you have to find a way to keep it from getting as cold as a hardneck garlic bulb can take.
sometimes i go to the grocery store and get garlic bulbs there. but you got to look at the sticker to see were they come from.

I wouldn't recommend buying the garlic at grocery stores either to grow. You don't know where they've been, what they've been treated with, etc.

My local garden/seed store starts selling garlic bulbs in September/October, as they can lay dormant over the winter and then they produce an early spring harvest. I'm not sure if you plant them now that you'll have a harvest in the fall. The gardening book I have says that if the leaves droop and fall, just tie them together with a string to keep them off the ground. As to why only one large clove grew out of each garlic, I'm not sure, could have been spacing.

WeGrowGarlic.com has an excellent selection of garlics. It's where I bought my original stock from. You'll probably have to check the website frequently to find out when the new catalog will be up and when it is be sure to order early, they sell out pretty fast.

If by bulbils you mean the little pea sized bulbs that grow on the flower stalk, then a round is what they are supposed to make. If you were to plant that round again, it will produce a garlic bulb with cloves.

Rodney

I bought my seed garlic from southern exposure 2 years ago and they shipped them to me right before my planting time. I don't know if this is the case with most garlic grower sites but most vegetable seed sellers will ship your garlic right before the planting time for your zone.

If you do end up buying garlic in July and receiving them soon after, as long as the garlic were properly dried and cured they can be stored until your planting time. I stored my own harvest last year in a basement (65 degrees, 50% humidity) from July to October and had no problem at all.

Many companies offer garlic. Territorial and Burpee are seed companies that also offer garlic. Other companies deal more with garlic and less with veggies. I used to buy from Irish Eyes, but I think they changed their name or changed hands. Do a web search for growing garlic and you'll likely find mention of, if not links to many good companies.

You can't really order garlic reliably before midsummer. The reason being that companies will be sending you bulbs in the autumn from the crop harvested this summer. So they don't know their stock until after the harvest. And they won't send your garlic until a little bit before the appropriate time for planting in your area, as has been mentioned. Cheers!

Thanks everyone! I signed up for notifications at WeGrowGarlic.com, and I'll check out the others. And I didn't know they'd ship at the correct time, that's great!

After a little more research, I discovered that what I thought were called bulbils were not bulbils at all. I meant that I also planted the little teeny cloves that were in the bulbs I bought (when everything I'd read said just to plant the big cloves). The majority of what I got were rounds though, rather than heads, so I'm thinking that probably means something more like the growing conditions were less than ideal (which they definitely were--poor soil, planted later than I should have, and I think the mulch cover DH used was too heavy).

Thanks for the input, everyone! I'm learning a whole lot really fast this first year, and my head is kind of spinning :-)

Last year I purchased garlic from Copper Kettle. I believe it is a newer garlic farm and I was amazed at how inexpensive the garlic was.

I have also purchased from the garlic store in Colorado, they have a wide selection. I have also purchased from Territorial where the quality is good but I always find the prices kind of high.

I got mine from Seed Savers Exchange, and I have grown Lorz Italian garlic with great ease and success for several years, including in amended clay soils.

Most of mine were also from Seed Savers Exchange or Territorial Seeds originally. If you remember to set aside garlic to plant in the fall (don't eat it accidentally!) from your harvest, the initial investment in good garlic becomes minimal. I pick the best heads of garlic and plant the largest cloves.

I really love Music, Georgian Fire, Pskem river and Georgian Crystal. Chinese pink is a great, very early softneck, but it must be planted extremely late in the season to do well (I plant mine Nov-Dec, instead of early October for the rest). I had a few hardnecks fall over this year. It was the first time I've had that happen. I know they are hardnecks as they are from my own saved garlic.

Bellatrix

I've been growing Music and Chesnok Red for the last 2 years. I just dug up Music and they are huge. Chesknok Red still needs another week or so.

When I bought Chesnok Red, the consensus was that it won't keep very long but actually my harvest last year were good for at least 7 or 8 months when they ran out.

I never realized you can spend this much time thinking about garlic varieties but it is kind of wonderful to be able to do that. The story of how a lot of these varieties came to the US is also wonderful.

This is a helpful post I found on a search. Years ago when I had a garden I think I bought garlic from Johnny's but the seem to have gone more commercial/wholesale and I didnt see any in their catalog.
I live a little bit further south now, southwestern Ohio (5a I think) and only have a plot in the community garden.
My concern is, they will do a basic till/plow of the whole thing probably in late April.
Will that be too early to harvest garlic? I could try planting it on the very edge next to the grass so they could miss it easily but that is the hardest clay spot and slightly downhill (might make drainage worse?)

This is a helpful post I found on a search. Years ago when I had a garden I think I bought garlic from Johnny's but the seem to have gone more commercial/wholesale and I didnt see any in their catalog.
I live a little bit further south now, southwestern Ohio (5a I think) and only have a plot in the community garden.
My concern is, they will do a basic till/plow of the whole thing probably in late April.
Will that be too early to harvest garlic? I could try planting it on the very edge next to the grass so they could miss it easily but that is the hardest clay spot and slightly downhill (might make drainage worse?)

I ordered my garlic in July, just received an email that it was shipped yesterday Sept13.
It seems the garlic was still growing after I ordered it.

Mary, yes April is too early to harvest garlic. And it does like loose soil. Maybe you could make a raised bed for your garlic at the edge, and put something around it to protect it, and let the tiller know about it. Good luck!