No, do not prune your garlic but I recommend mulching with a few inches of chopped leaves or straw to maintain a more consistent soil temperature thru the winter. Your excess top growth may get frozen over the winter but it will grow back come early spring.

Sounds like you planted it rather shallow if it emerged and grew that fast. When I plant garlic, the top of the cloves are about 2.5" below the soil and it often takes over 3 weeks to sprout above ground. Did you plant individual cloves or whole bulbs? If you planted whole bulbs then that would explain having 6 or 7 leaves already. Single clove planting in mid October IME won't grow more than 2 or 3 leaves before a hard freeze in my area.

Thank you Lone Jack

We planted single cloves 3" deep but remember they are in a raised bed which probably holds more day time heat. The whole cloves were bought in late June from two different supermarkets and were hung in a mesh bag unfridgerated until 15th of October when we separated and planted them.

Some of them had started to sprout in the bag. Maybe the reason for quick emergence. Hope your suggestion of the heavy mulch gets them through the winter. Should we mulch now or wait until we get a freeze or heavy frost?

Yes I imagine the fact that they were already sprouting would be the reason for the quick emergence. Hardneck garlic can take even the most severe winter weather. Softnecks sometimes suffer winter kill in the colder climates. You can mulch now or wait until you get a freeze. The main object of the mulch is to keep the freeze/thaw cycle from causing frost heave which can rip the roots off of the garlic sprouts.

Good luck!

entry deleted by author. sorry.

The garlic I planted shallower sprouted later than the deeper planted cloves for me. I am guessing it is because it had to go through more work to develop strong roots.

Peter, I thought you just wrote it wrong. Plants sprout later if planted deeper, in general.

I would not cut garlic green if planting for summer garlic heads. Any cuttings would stimulate more top growth and exhaust the energy of the plant. I'll just leave them be. Or just pull some really tall ones and consume in the kitchen....

I wrote it correctly. Whatever the "in general" consensus is, that was not my experience this year. I am not talking about planting very deep, just slight difference.