That is the case for me. I only plant one soft neck, Early Italian Purple and it sprouts very soon after planting, does not seem to mind the cold and is ready at least a month before the hard necks.

I expect that store bought will likely all germinate faster than one's own stock, since they have likely been stored cold enough for long enough, but even then there is a difference. My Music, Siberian, and VietNamese Red hardnecks did not show up as quickly this fall as the Turbans I bought. In fact all of my own garlics were slower to appear this fall than what I bought. Most of them are hardnecks and the one exception is the Japanese, an Asiatic, which is also slower. All of my own are stored warm over the summer; so maybe that is it. It has been a really mild autumn here in Minneapolis, if fact yesterday we had a thunderstorm complete with rain. I have had some sprouting from every type I planted back in October this year, and it was not uniform either.

Yes. All my softnecks are up this past fall before hardnecks. Some hardnecks came up eventually, some didn't. Zone 7a.

My softneck garlic sent out very strong (thick) top now. But my hardneck garlic (even the rounds) garlic still just sent out think top growth. Just hope by spring time, the hardneck can catch up.

I have already fertilized once this year. Always do a good mulching with ground bark compost and amendments sometime in January and water soluble seaweed based fertilizer as the foliage tells me it needs some.

Hi Kristin,

Topdressing during growth is a very good practice for alliums. I might suggest looking back over your history and trying to figure out the timing to topdress just before the foliage starts to show lack. Every slight interruption decreases final yield a bit, even when plants immediately respond.

I topdress with Milorganite every couple of weeks, but stopping about a month and a half or so before harvest. But that is also a slower release type that very seldom ever burns; so that smooths out fertilizer availability as well as safely recycling what is too often discarded.

Back when my mother still did her own gardening, she fertilized with soluble fertilizer with every watering, just at a very much lower concentration. She was a master gardener in all but the certs.

Red, Don't worry about the hardnecks, provided your drainage is good; spring is their time to bloom, literally, and their time to put on heavy growth. You really don't need them to catch up with the earliest softnecks anyway. Every variety has its own harvest time. I expect my Music and Siberian to be about my last to be dug, with the Asiatics to come out maybe a month earlier and others in between.