you will just have to wait until later in the Fall.

Well, I need to dig since it is time to plant the garlic.

As to wait for later of the season, because we get more rains, or the water is not evaporated much? Or both, maybe.

Water via sprinkler or whatever.

1. Water until runoff begins.
2. Stop.
3. Wait an hour or so, then GoTo #1, above.

Repeat until moist to 10 or 12 inch depth.

adding fresh compost and watering will help more then just watering, the micro bacteria soften the soil.

We have clay soil and get 2 times we can dig! Once for 2 weeks in the spring, and once for 2 weeks when the rain starts in the fall (crossing my fingers that it DOES start this fall! Drought in CA!!!!) Otherwise only a tractor can dig it up! That's why we have raised beds! (and gophers)
Compost helps a lot, but it's not instantaneous! It can take time!
Do you have some large containers? I've never tried garlic in containers, but.......who knows? Nancy

I already dug the bed only, but only about 3"-4" deep, with my pick. I got rid of the grass. I'd prefer to dig it a lot deeper.

I remember the days when I can just dip my shovel to dig the soil up. It is not a lot work to do single digging. Double digging is also possible. This is an old farm field.

Container won't work. This is a 10'x30' bed. I plan to dig two other beds, smaller, but too small. I figure I may have to flex my musles.....

As was said, on-off cycling of water until moist.

Compost works in like 24 hours to soften the top layer, then dig in more and more. It does not take like 6 months like making compost. You may be confusing this. If the compost is already made it works very fast, one days time.

If you just dig to plant the garlic, then you will have problems in July, when you pull it, and the soil will be rock hard again. I have daikon where garlic is going (it was an error), and it is not quite ready. I will plant the garlic in November, and still get a good crop. so get organized, get some OM to till in, then plant the garlic.

Use a pitchfork to loosen the soil and amend it where you plant. continuously topdress and water your plants during dry periods.

If you have the budget, build raised garden beds with better growing media. I don't, so I amend as I plant and compost. If you don't compost, at least save your coffee grounds and egg shells for your plants.

We just got 2-3" of rain. I dug a 7'x15' area for my beard iris. It is better now.

Pitchfork won't work in my situation. It is so soft. I get rocks and the soil can be hard. I used a digging fork and I bent it badly. Digging fork is stronger than the pitchfork. I always use shovel and pick to dig the soil.

I do not build raised beds, but make soil mounds. Raised beds cost more; raised beds need maintenance; raised beds are not flexible enough when I want to relocate the beds; last, my beds are much longer than what the raised beds can go due to the limit of the materials.

Why don't you make a no-dig garden - that seems the obvious answer to me. I have provided a link below, also research Esther Dean's Gardening Book Growing Without Digging.

http://communitygarden.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/no-dig-brochure.pdf

It will be relatively quick to make for you garlic to grow.

I wish I could make some no-dig beds, or the lasagna beds. But I can't. Now I need to dig two 10'x30' beds for the garlic. If I want to make 6" thick, that is 11 cubic yard. I think compost costs about $20 to $30/cubic yard. So that is about $250 for the two beds..... Even 6" is not enough.

Then I have much more beds to build.....

Now this may sound nasty but not intended..... I'm going to assume you are not poor so why not just go to Home Depot and rent a Tiller for the day? Problem solved. While you're at it till in some compost.

It's too late for the garlic bed, but for future beds, you could try mulching the area of the planned bed long in advance - like now, for the spring. .Use the fall leaves, collapsed cardboard boxes, wood chips from the tree companies, whatever compost you've got left - any organic matter. Digging in the spring will be much easier than what you're dealing with now.

I have clay soil, very hard with shale rock underneath. This is how I did it:

Water the area in evening. This will barely moisten only the top 1-2" of soil. In the morning, go and dig just the top layer so there are cracks created in the soil. No need to break clods at this point. In evening again water the area. This time the water will go a little bit deeper through those cracks. Next day go out dig again. Idea is to deepen the cracks so water can go deeper. Repeat the whole process till you get to a foot or so deep. Then add rough organic material like horse manure (is more fibrous) or grass clippings or shredded mulch or leaf mulch. You will have to add a lot. Use double dig method to mix this stuff to the deeper parts of the soil. this will prevent soil from caking and hardening again. It will take some time to do this and plot may not be ready for planting stuff this season. In that case cover the top with some kind of mulch or compost or use green crop method. By next spring it will be good soil. Do same thing next fall and two springs from now you will have great soil.

About tiller from Homedepot: I tried that several years ago. The soil is so hard that the machine just bounces on the surface. You have to sit some body on top of the machine as weight to keep it even down. Once you make the necessary cracks down to a foot, you can use the tiller to break up the clods and mix and remix the organic material. Good luck.

I plant around 300 cloves of garlic in clay soil that at this time of year resembles concrete. I moisten it up to help, but still, I'll sprain a wrist and get a handful of blisters trying to plant by hand.

This year I used an electric drill, extension cords, and a bulb auger and did the job in about an hour.

A tip - I've found that if I plant the clove about an inch deep instead of the recommended 4 inches, it works just fine as long as I mulch the bed with around 4" of grass clippings/leaves and make sure it doesn't dry out over the winter. The bulbs are a whole lot easier to dig next summer.

I just dug my 2nd and 3rd garlic beds today. It was not too bad. The area with grass is easier to dig. Since the beds will be used to grow garlic bulbils, I do not need to dig very deep.

With our winter freeze & thaw cycle, it helps for the roots to get deeper. This actually helps the soil.

I watered the beds for some time after I dig the beds. I may turn the soil a bit deeper if I can. Again it is not necessary. I think it is much easier if this is existing bed.

For the drill thing, it is easy. But it is not optimal. The roots need more room to grow roots. Loose soil certainly helps in growing a larger bulb.

As for planting shallow. If this is a short plant, then no problem. But some the garlic plants can be very tall. Then this can be a problem....

If I had that kind of spot, I would be making several of my 4' X 8' beds, adding some soil that's not so much clay, and planting there.

I had huge areas of my yard that were very hard, but I took my time with those. I collected hundreds of bags of leaves from all around my neighborhood, ground them up, and then let them over-winter. Even then, I only dug localized planting areas. By the time a year has passed, I will dig all the leaves into the soil (not so hard then), and mulch again. By the second spring, the beds won't be so bad. Five years later, the soil will be marvelous.

Planting garlic in heavy clay soil that gets hard as a rock will not make very good garlic. You'll just be disappointed with tiny, poor heads. Good luck.

I agreed that improving soil is a long term project. I mostly try to work with the land and soil we already have. And do not force anything.

I never make small beds like 4'x8'. Too small for my taste. I have 4 beds for beard iris and the largest is about 8'x25'. The smallest one is 6'x15'. All the flower/garden beds are in the outskirt of the wooded area, but still receive almost full sun.

I would not say that my soil is heavy clay. This is a farm land for many years before the builder built the house. It is just that September is typically a dry month for our area and even the trees are stressed and shed leaves early.

I know some local farms who grow garlic and the garlic looks good.

Planting garlic in heavy clay soil that gets hard as a rock will not make very good garlic. You'll just be disappointed with tiny, poor heads. Good luck.

It works pretty well, actually. I grow onions, leeks, shallots, and garlic in this clay - the trick is a heavy mulch, I use clover/grass clippings. The worms, and there are plenty, work on the mulch and incorporate the nitrogen and organic matter.

OTOH, I garden in a high desert environment, and the soil can dry out over the winter and early spring with the wind, so I do have to keep an eye on the garlic beds to make sure they don't get too dry, particularly if its a low snow year. Drag out the garden hoses now and again, or its a pretty dismal crop. In the summer we have abundant irrigation water.

I have another week of irrigation - I just now planted, got the beds nice and wet, then mulched them with 6" of grass clippings, then sprayed down the mulch. Have my fingers crossed we get some snow this year.

I just dug my garlic bed again, mixing with about 2" home made compost, all I can come up with. The leaves from the nearby oaks should help with mulching.

The first garlic bed is 10'x26'.

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The 2nd bed is 6'x20' and the 3rd bed is 9'x16'. They will be used to grow bulbils and gallions.

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All the beds get full sun and still shielded from Northern wind by the trees. The fully aged wood chips will be used as mulch. The wood chips are 50% composted, about 5 years old. The beds are ready. I just need to get rid of the weeds. They are mostly annual grass.