So sorry to hear of your maggot troubles. Last year I had a lot of fusarium (very wet year) so we dried the good cloves while they were still good. You can pulverize dried garlic into excellent garlic powder in a dedicated coffee grinder, in small batches.

This year a few of my big rocamboles are showing critter incursions into individual cloves. I'll use the good cloves in pickles and cooking but won't try to cure them.

Hi krok,

I've had the exact same problem a couple of times. I've not had any problems saving single (or any non-full bulb) cloves from now until re-planting time in fall. They do dry out a bit faster than the ones that still have bulb wrappers but I wouldn't worry about it too much.

At least for me, throwing them in the fridge will actually be worse since they dry out pretty quickly - I just leave them in the pantry (at around 70 degrees) and, depending on the variety, they last a few months.

Never tried just freezing them (aside from making tons of pesto in ice cube trays) though I can't see why that would be a problem - they freeze each year in my soil when fall planted.

Grinding also works well as planatus says (but believe me, a dedicated grinder is essential ... garlic flavored coffee is definitely not a good taste for me!)

Thanks all for the info. I'll just store them as I normally would the cured bulbs and use them as needed and plant the nice ones come October. I have them outside on a covered side porch on a screen and their outer skins are already drying out pretty quickly in just these 24 hours. We'll probably use most of them over the next few months anyway since we use a lot of garlic. I do have a dehydrator and drying them to grind may be an option too that I might explore. I've never done that before but I have an uncle that does and I hear that "fresh" garlic powder is pretty amazing. I appreciate everyone's advice, let's just hope the rest of my bulbs aren't infested. Last year I had no idea and had a really large harvest only when it came time to cut the leaves off and trim up the roots I realized a lot of the bulbs felt hollow. They got almost all of my shallots and multiplier onions last year too, to the point where I had nothing to save to replant in fall. Again I had no idea until I thought they were done curing and realized most of my shallots/onions smelled weird and were partly rotted on the inside. I am going to have to get serious about control methods before the summer is over to try to head off the overwintering generation. Thanks again all!

I am wondering if frozen garlic will develop a bad flavor if not blanched or otherwise pre-treated before freezing. Can't imagine that it would survive well without.

I've read some university research and actually tried storing my seed garlic like this last yer, everything worked like a charm. According to them, the best way to store garlic - culinary as well as seed - is to keep it in a fridge at 26-30F (yes, slightly bellow freezing). Most fridges are at 45-50F. But if you can provide these conditions, you are safe 100%. Just make sure your garlic cloves are well cured