I'm new to garlic too. My neighbor who has grown garlic for quite a while, gave me some to plant last fall. It's already sprouted, but seems to be doing ok even with the cold weather. from what I understand, you plant in the fall to harvest the next year.

Barbi

Come spring, side dress with fertilizer, make sure it has plenty of water and watch it grow. If it is a hard neck garlic, it will send up a stem with a curl in it - cut the stem back and use for greens or in omelet- leaving it on will mean smaller heads of garlic.
Around July the leaves will start to turn yellow. When most are yellow but there are still a few green, it's time to harvest the garlic and let it cure in dry shade.

OK you two newbieÂs; growing garlic can be very easy if you know a few things about the garlic plant. To get the best bulbs, plant in the fall about six weeks before your first frost. Since both of you are roughly in the same zones that would be in late September or early October.
Follow what oldroser said about garlic in the spring. I pile on a lot of mulch in the fall after the garlic starts to come up, 6 to 8 inches deep, it will settle to about 4 inches. Keep out the winter and spring weeds.
DonÂt let the harvested bulbs set very long in bright sunshine.
See the Grocery posting and the one about growing garlic for personal use above for more information.

thanks for the advice guys. How do you know if you have hardneck or softneck garlic? mine has already sprouted, but seems to be doing ok with the cold.

Two easy ways to identify hardnecks are:

They tend to have a single circle of cloves while softnecks have interior cloves inside an outer ring.

Hardnecks send out scapes in June, a long curling flower stalk that contain bulbils which can be planted. You should cut most of these off when they make their first loop to maximize bulb size. They also make great eating.

I would heartily recommend hard necks in your zones. You will not find them in a grocery store: you might want to browse garlic seed stock suppliers on the web. They have lots of useful information even if you don't buy from them.