Nice pics! Looks like you've grown some fine garlic -- congrats.

As far as watering your garlic, no you don't need to water late in the growing cycle.

Garlic only needs water during its primary growth stage -- basically, while the foliage is growing. During about the last month or so, when the bulbs are sizing up, water isn't necessary.

After you harvest your garlic, the next step is to cure it. The curing stage is basically a process by which you dry your garlic to ensure that it will store well. Any water the garlic receives toward the end of its growing stage, be it from rainfall or irrigation, doesn't help the garlic bulbs get any larger -- it really only lengthens the curing stage.

I hope that's helpful.

Vey good garlic crop and pics.
Mine are in similar stage, maybe a bit bigger in size.
Good soil, feeding, watering, especially when they resume growth in the spring
make big difference. Soil has to have lots of organic mater, if native soil is clay.
Also I have learned to plant them REAL SHALLOW. As show on the picture, garlics
grow long vertical roots. It is the same as onions.I also loosen up the soil around them and remove some away so part of bulb is exposed
then mulch them.
It is logical that bulbs can grow with much ease if they are not bound with hard soil.
Two years ago I did not know anything about growing garlics and onions.
Thanks to GW fellows, I am learning more every year.
cyrus

I think that one's climate and soil have a lot to do with whether or not you plant deep and how much you need to irrigate. I plant in raised beds filled with soilless mix, it gets into the low to mid 30s often (just did so last week) so I plant extra deep--4" to 6", I'd estimate. In late Winter I mulch with a combination of composted chicken manure (the bagged kind) and composted forest products.

I hardly ever water, especially during the last month. I live in a rainy climate, it is pouring at this very minute, and only went out and watered my hardnecks once last week as it had been a couple weeks without precipitation.

Mine all generally get huge like 1newport's. I pulled out a disappointingly small one this weekend, however, just to see how they were coming along and I can see that the Italian Purple will need another month, as usual. Was hoping they'd be a bit earlier as we had a mild winter and everything kept growing for most of it.

I harvested 'red janice' turban garlic on Saturday. I'll probably bring in one or two more varieties this week. This is my third year with garlic and first with turban garlic, they threw me for a loop because they sent up scapes that were still small and far from opening when the foliage looked ready for harvest. Dug a couple up and found that they were full size and ready to go. This is weird because the plant would probably be fully dormant by the time the flowers on the scape opened. Perhaps they flower without foliage like naked ladies (amarylis belladonna), or perhaps domestication has made them reproductively challenged.

Other than the 6-leaf rule, you can squeeze the stems of the garlic just above the ground to see if they're ready for harvest. When they are ready the stem starts getting spongy, if it's hard then it needs more time.

Thank You everyone for your responses! I'm eager to see what happens next year as I dedicated the garlic to it's own box this time LOL.