Yes, garlic works well. I don't know how it would be in your gardening zone, Mr. Toad, but up here in RI (I am on the coast in zone 7a) we use hardneck garlic and we plant it in late October, mulch it heavily and then harvest it the following July.

But it can take up space you might want for summer crops. Next year (meaning starting this October) we're going to grow all our alliums - onions, chives, garlic - just outside the potager fencing, a separate 2 ft. deep border, as a deer deterrent.

Unless you have a very large potager, you might want to try the, ahem, extrapotager allium border.

Carol

Garlic definitely has a place in the potager. The foliage has a structural quality to it that is very nice. One thing to consider though is that it is harvested in July and you harvest after 1/3 of the foliage has died back which is important if you are hosting a garden party at the time it starts to look scraggly. I am also partial to the look of shallots in the garden. If you want a variety of garlic, look to online sources (I purchase mine from a place in Colorado, I will have to find a link when I am not working). Selection at the big box stores, etc, is rather limited.

I grow my garlic on the edge of rows where I intend to plant squash the following summer, so they can deter any nasty bugs if said bugs are the type that object to garlic. Not that it helped this year; squash bugs did my squash in. But I view garlic as a plant that can be tucked in to a variety of places. I tend to doubleplant anyway; I put celery along the edges of my cucumber rows, too.