If you really want to recover the rounds this year you could build a screen and sift the soil. It'd be a ton of work though. Otherwise I don't think there is much you can do besides wait for them to resprout or give up on them.

Rodney

I would think that you should just go ahead and use the space for something else this year. You will have volunteers next spring regardless, but just what they will be will be the question. The only way to tell will be to grow them out and see if you can identify the mature bulbs and the plants that produce them. IMO you can put off deciding what to do about the missed rounds until the fall crop is out or even until next spring.

I do not mind what kind of garlic the volunteer garlic is. But if I dig the soil deep, the hidden garlic will be buried and won't sprout again.

I'm thinking of planting some shallow rooted vege for the fall. And probably plant some bulbils again at the same bed. I just do not want the volunteers become my "garlic" weeds if I plant something else.

The only thing is that, the garlic will be mixed varieties and will be really naturalized in my soil....

I weeded my old garlic bed (6' x 20') today. The bed has been empty after the garlic was harvested. I found so many volunteer garlic plants. I planted German Red bulbils in this bed.

It is amazing that there are so many of them. I already harvested several hundreds. I believe I planted about 660 bulbils.

I'm going to wait for one or two weeks and fill in the empty spot with the same bulbils or even some garlic rounds in the empty spots. This sounds a lot of work since they are still densely planted. But it won't be precise. And I'll only fill in large empty space.

I have another bulbil bed in similar situation. I'm going to weed it this week or weekend. I think I left even more bulbils there. So I may just let it grow by itself since there are 14 rows, 9'x16'. Very hard to get in the bed.

I usually create specific locations where I plant bulbils and/or buttons very densely, and as they sprout and develop a little size, I lift them out with a little hand spade and relocate them in a location where I want to grow garlic, spaced properly, etc. I have found that if I just leave the "seed" bed alone, I continue to get new sprouts over at least a couple of years, and each time I get 5 to 10 good ones sprouting, I relocate them. I segregate the seed bed by variety, so I have a clue, and I keep it weeded and cared for, but I don't disturb it for a couple of years, and they continue to sprout.

Well, this is a good idea if the seed bed is small. But with my bulbil beds about 10' by 20', that is not manageable. Next time, I may want to dig them up a little early. So I do not miss any of them. Last year, I was late in weeding and digging and I missed one or two varieties completely, two entire rows....

Most of my volunteer garlic plants have sprouted. Some of them are garlic bulbs with cloves. So some plants have 4 or 5 small plants. I dug up most of them, separate the plants and re-planted them.

That should work out just fine.

I would make some comment about weeding, but my garden has been garden for 30 years; so my worst weeding problems are behind me, even if they never completely go away.

The weeds are the problem the very first year of new bed. It goes much better later. But some, like Bethlehem Star Lily, is always a problem since it is bulb, very hard to kill.

Here are my volunteer garlic, mainly German Red. I have two beds.

Not sure how large they can get. Some of the first garlic from bulbils grow to about 1" diameter heads. Some are rounds. I expect these to be larger than last year's....