So what are we supposed to call those "things"?

I had corms/bulblets attached to my rounds. I don't know specifics though because some had more than others.

I think that's what you call them! :)

I'm just curious though if they are attached only to full heads of elephant garlic or to the rounds too.

I had them attached to the rounds also.. They may already be on the round before it divides into cloves...

I grow elephant garlic from the corms or sets, as some people call them. I’m in Northern Nevada in zone 5. I grow them in a raised bed planted 4” to 5” apart. I do not dig them the first year. Once they go dormant I remove all of the tops and mulch with compost. The second year I dig the rounds and cure them in my shed. In the third year I rotate to a bed that hasn’t had Alliums for 2 years and plant the rounds. The rounds planted the 3rd year do very well and develop much larger heads than those grown from store bought cloves. Cloves develop into rounds similar to the sets taking a second year to produce a head.

They key is to fertilize properly and heavily. I fertilize my raised beds with a combination of 2 year old compost of chicken, horse, and rabbit manure and alfalfa meal with an organic fertilizer. During the growing season I foliar feed every 2 weeks with a hose end sprayer until mid May.

dalia bush;

I grow a lot of traditional garlic both hard neck and soft neck this fall I was thinking of picking up a few elephant garlic from a grocery store and plant the cloves and see what happened, maybe I should be thinking of another method? At this point I haven't seen an elephant garlic advertised for seed.(from my available sources)

Chic, I did that very thing and most of those grocery store cloves, fall planted did not sprout until the second year when they only grew small rounds with a couple of attached bulblets. I had a couple spring planted that came right up, but have not done much better. I have had decent luck with some grocery store garlic, but not grocery store elephants.

Well thanks Old Dutch, I know the elephant garlic isn't a true garlic but related to the Leek family, the attraction is the size, and I read somewhere that it is longer storing than any other type of garlic! And some of my garlic customers ask for it. They seem to be happy with large Porcelain in its place though.

Chic Grinyer

Elephant garlic is a leek that acts very much like garlic. The difference is it takes an extra year to produce the very large heads. Build your planting bed up with horse manure or equivalent and plant it from September to mid October. If your results are rounds instead of heads with cloves replant them in a new bed, and they will produce the characteristic very elephant garlic heads.

I grow corms & I got 5 first year rounds from my brother in law who have grown this EG bulbs from corms for 50 year.

He retired & grows vegetables & small fruit for sale as well as rooted cutting in gallon pots. He sale out of garlic clove every year & grows more from last year corms to rounds then clove the 2nd year.

But he makes very thing look easy, still corms are easy.

I just let them lay in the bed & grow until the send up scrape, then I pull them for use.

I never see the corms,they are under ground, but new rounds come up every year.