Exciting (and busy) times on your farm! I plant my garlic closer although I do plant in raised beds with very fluffy soil mix. I find that some varieties, Early Italian Purple, for example, will tolerate a much closer planting than the two Porcelain varieties I grow (German Extra Hardy and Music.) I also plant Korean red about 6" X 6" which is what I do for the EIP and German Red. The Porcelains go in at 8" to 10".

I also plant some 18" containers at the end of my carport to retain varieties I don't necessarily want a ton of or for insurance just in case some disaster befalls the plants in the garden. They are a lot more crowded into the pot, but seem to do very well I believe because they sit on concrete which gets afternoon sun even in winter. Not to mention I can get to them without putting on rubber boots.

I am planting later than I ever have, btw, and am quite enjoying the slower, easier and less physical pace of it all. Also, not planning on putting in as much as is usual.

Small time grower here.

Having only about 200 sq. ft. of growing space for garlic (without eliminating all my other garden veggies) I started out planting Spanish Roja at a 6" x 6" grid in 2' wide (5 clove wide) rows, following Ron Engeland's technique for the same variety. I did this for years and just couldn't get the bulbs to size up, 1-1/2" to 1-3/4" at very best. I finally listened to some of the experienced growers here and decided that mine is just not the same environment as Engeland had and needed to get some variety in my plantings.

So last year I tried a number of new varieties and kept the same 6" x 6" spacing. I ended up with three varieties on that spacing that sized up nicely to 2"-2-1/2" bulbs - Siberian red, Chinese white and Bogatyr. It seems that it depends on local growing conditions and variety (and watering and fertilizing, of course).

This year, after reading many threads here in the Allium Forum I decided to experiment with the same varieties on a 8" x 8" grid in 2' wide (4 clove wide) rows to see what the difference may be. At a 6" x 6" spacing each interior clove gets 36 sq. in. for root run and sunlight and at 8" x 8" each would get 64 sq. in., or about 75% more area apiece so it seems worth a try. In the past it seems like someone suggested 8" spacing in rows 10" apart similar to what RedSun is trying but I just don't have the room if I want any quantity. The way it is now I only managed to get 270 cloves in the ground, quite a bit less than last year. Anyway, we'll see come next June...

I think the other factor is what to compare. In general, tight spacing may yield small bulbs, but the total yield by size may be even higher since more garlic is planted. With deeper soil, more roots can go down further. So root competition can reduced this way. Top growth can be a factor for garlic with large tops.

I space 6" x 6". How I do it is in rows 5 1/2" apart and the cloves of one row spaced half way between the cloves on the surrounding two rows so all the cloves are 6" apart on the diagonal, but more than that between cloves in each row. All my varieties are showing sprouts already, which the really precocious ones almost 6" high already. If I ever get a couple of nice dry days then I will mulch them with yard leaves from the front lawn.