We had very light snow cover here in Minneapolis, but my garlics, planted last October are all up. That would by about 15 cloves each of 8 varieties, including one softneck in with the rest of the hardnecks. The largest are easily 4 or 5 inches tall. Walking onions, elephant garlic and sand leeks are also up already. I did not mulch any of them last fall either.

I had some growth already last fall before freeze up and that seems to have survived and constitutes the largest plants.

Health problems and now rain have delayed my planting out onions and multipliers; so those remain to go in, as do the radishes, carrots and green peas. We have had a very early spring thaw, but only my fall plantings have been able to take advantage of it this so far year.

I'm warmer here in Zone 6. My garlic is like OldDutch's. I wish I had planted my fall garlic in early November, not in late October. The softneck was already up in early winter, still the tallest now. But some did not make the winter, mainly due to wet weather. Most of the hardneck made it better since they did not have much growth early. I think they can catch up rather quickly.

The ones that were up last fall are now far and away the largest standing a good foot tall with half a dozen leaves and thick stems. The rest are much more ... shall I say petite, but all are making a strong showing with very few missing cloves.

The two varieties I got from the grocery store were the ones that showed up last fall and now are the biggest and heaviest of the plants that came through the winter. They had some huge cloves which is all that I planted from them. So clove size at planting really does seem to make a difference.

We also had -20 and little to no snow cover for much of the winter. My garlics didn't seem to mind one little bit. In fact none of my perennial alliums did and I even had a couple of missed red onion plants make it through the winter. I have a sandy soil that tends to be very well drained and I had some top growth from a couple of garlic varieties late last fall.

Right now it is snowing here in Minneapolis, but nothing is sticking at this point. By week end I will be mulching and side dressing the bed, (I hope...)

Update: Music and Japanese are overtaking the grocery store varieties, which are themselves very robust this year. Siberian is very nearly the same. Viet Namese Red is a bit more petite and a bit behind in development. All of these, including the store stock are showing very impressive vigor.

The feral I collected two years ago in Iowa is showing a bit more guts than last year, but is still significantly smaller than the rest of my hardnecks. I remain hopeful that bulb size will eventually increase as it readapts to cultivation, since this feral is the survivor of a family heirloom, but last years bulbs were still very small and it has a long way to go for bulb size, although it grows very easily and looks like one of those that will volunteer to escape with very little encouragement. I expect one could set up a perennial patch of this one for spring gallions, but I already have topsets and sand leeks, both of which would also serve that purpose.

I also planted a Mexican creole which is proving to be disappointing, with puny stems and in general undersized foliage. That one will get culled, unless something really changes around. All the cloves came up, but a significant number of them were doubles and all are just too skinny to please me anyway.

Both of my store stocks came from Cub bulk bins, both had very large cloves, which was all that I planted of them last fall. One was their normal white soft neck, but the other was a hardneck striped variety they bring in late spring through early summer, when they drop the white soft neck. Both of the store stocks sprouted and came up last fall, carried through the winter and picked up right where they left off at freeze up. I never did get them mulched last fall either, and they really didn't seem to notice. I doubt I will hesitate to plant those store stocks again, if the need arises.

As of the first of June, all my own hardnecks (Music, Japanese, Siberian, Viet Namese Red, and the family feral) are all doing well, all up to just about waist high except the feral, which although is healthy is still about 1/3 smaller. The Cub bulk softneck white is also doing very well and looks just about the same vigorous. Two other types, both likely Mexican creoles of some kind are fading away already and never did do much this spring despite a good start and decent survival over winter.

Still no scapes, but they should show up anytime now. There are already a good set of developing bulbils on the walking onions; so I expect the garlic scapes to put in a show very soon.