when you find out will you let me know the answer

I grow Garlic in Mi. I have bulblets. I just throw them out on the ground and off they grow a little looking like grass and in the spring they grow much taller when the tops form bulblets again your garlic is ready to pull up at the bottom test one to see if lg yet might need to wait a week or 2 longer. If you want you can put out in the Spring they will be a big smaller cloves in my opion but yummy. let them dry good when you pull them up. I put in the garage till it starts frost and in they go in the Tator box. Yummy.

i have grown garlic for many years in new york and now in Iowa .Plant the biggest fattest toes about 2 inches deep and about 3 inches apart in the fall. Leaf and/or straw mulch will not slow them down. Mine are pushing green sprouts up thru the leaves already and have nice roots judging from the ones the squirrels turn up that I have to replant.They will be pushing up thru the snow early in spring before even the crocus.I pick and eat the scapes (flowers) while they are fresh and young around June to help the bulb grow big but you can leave them to grow bulblets if you want to increase your crop quickly. Pull them in late summer before they turn all the way brown or late summer rain will rot them in the ground. Garlic in your area was devastated by yellow asters blight in 2012. There is a lengthy post about it and I am not sure it affected me in S.E. Iowa but I am not trading because something has made my garlic shrink and turn brown in storage. Good luck

Here is a link that might be useful: ricjo22's exchange list

I have never in Mi. growing for me had any trouble with Garlic turning brown. I do have nice green leafy sprigs up right now for next year further growth. I harvest before the tops die. Yes I agree to much Summer rain can cause them to croke but rarly happen's. I never by the way cover my bulblets when I sprinkle them out to grow. I spred them about a few inches apart so not to crowd lg clove growth.

Bon the garlic bulbils you traded to me came thru this drought better than any of my 10 varieties. many thanks . If you check the vegetable garden forum there is a post by soilent green about the minnesota garlic crop wiped out . It is on the 2nd page at this point a thread of almost fifty posts . It is sad and interesting reading Ric