I love garden surprises like that. Wasn't it fun to have something just pop up, seemingly out of nowhere?

You harvest garlic when some of the leaves have turned brown (the lower leaves) but while you still have maybe 4-6 green leaves at the top of each plant. The yellowing/browning of the garlic leaves indicate it is nearing maturity, but the reason you harvest it while some leaves are still green is that those green leaves form the wrapper that will protect the bulbs in storage. If you let all the leaves turn yellow/brown before you harvest, your garlic won't have good wrappers and won't store as well after you've cured it properly in the shade.

If you have hardneck garlic, it will send up scapes. You can harvest those scapes if you wish. They are popular stir-fried in various dishes. Or, if you prefer, you can leave the scapes on the plants. Regardless, once the scapes appear, that is a sign your hardneck garlic is a few weeks away from maturity. If you happen to use hardneck garlic, as some of us do, as protective plantings around other plants and you don't regularly harvest those protective garlic plants, the scapes will appear even earlier because the garlic plants might be several years old and obviously more quick to mature than younger hardneck garlic just planted the previous autumn.

The timing of garlic maturing varies from year to year, but down here in southcentral OK, the varieties I grow usually mature in June, but sometimes not until July.

As for not being able to smell it this early? That could be occurring for various reasons. FIrst, ahem, you and I are women of a certain age, shall we say.....and our sense of smell (along with our sense of taste) deteriorates as we age. That might be one reason. A second could be that you've had plentiful rain, which I think seems to water down that yummy garlic aroma. Don't worry. As it gets warmer and drier, the garlic smell gets stronger. A third could be that some garlic varieties don't seem to develop the stronger aroma until they get closer to maturity. I don't know if that is true of all garlic, but it seems true of at least some of the varieties to grow (or maybe it is just my aging sense of smell!).

Hope this helps!

Dawn

thank you Dawn !! that helps.i will send your info to Jeff so he knows when to harvest.i have to say even using them now they are so delicious.my daughter who is appreciative of gardening although not a gardener YET delightedly absconded with several garlic plants and some kale.btw the kale flowers are beautiful.i have never had kale bolt with such plentiful flowers and these tiny slender green pods that i assume are seed pods maybe ?? when i pick the leaves now i pick flowers too.yum yum

It seems like some plants get so well established that they just come right up through the mulch when the temps are right. I don't have kale going to seed but I do have some spinach/mustard plants that were planted early and have gone to seed. I have left them there and have noted that that the little cabbage looper moths are going to them rather than my broccoli, cabbage, and Chinese cabbage that is growing nearby. I know they are going to lay on something, so I hope they are choosing that crop which is past it's prime. I have just barely started to plant my hot weather seeds, so I haven't needed that space yet. I have had 5 or 6 onions go to seed, but they were the very largest transplants that I separated from the others because I was positive that they would go to seed.

I guess if I get any gardening done today, I will just have to put on a sweat shirt, use my kneeling stool, and try to stay dry because it appears that we aren't going to get any sun today. Guess that is a good day for the transplants even if it isn't a good day for the gardener. It's my birthday so I am just kind of being lazy today.......and I'm older. LOL

This is my first year growing garlic, and I've been surprised how big they are. I can certainly understand the comment about "onion plants on steroids"! A local grocery had garlic bulbs three for a dollar last October, and I've got about a dollars worth invested in regular garlic, plus a bit more in a bulb of elephant garlic. I'm hoping for a nice return on my investment come June!

I had too many cloves for my space and ran around plugging extras any place I had open last September. Then I forgot where I put them and wonder why garlic is growing THERE. I also planted something...it is either multiplier onions or shallots, that is being overwhelmed by the peas. I was given shallots, and I think that is where I put them, but I also had some multiplier onion sets. Time will tell.