You can stick some cloves in the ground and probably get garlic greens but not bulbs. Plant some in October for harvest next June or July.

Agree. You are much too late to get bulbs this year and far too early to plant for next year. If you do plant now you would get some greens to snip off like chives or you could get what some people refer to as "gallions" (the plants will look like green onions or scallions), but don't expect much more.

Rodney

For fun and food just plant some grocery store garlic cloves to get green garlic. You can cut the top growth down to the bulb and use like you would green onions. I find it tastes just as good as scapes. It's like a green onion with a garlic flavor. I love to use it on eggs. I usually do this with extra small sized cloves from the previous year that I am not going to cook with and are too small to dedicate garden space for next year's garlic harvest.

I gotta disagree somewhat. I have had surprisingly good results planting as late as late May. I have to think that I stumbled across some cloves that had been stored in a cooler, because they sprouted and grew full sized bulbs ready to harvest by the end of July. (That was my initial seed stock of Music, BTW). I am also getting ready to plant some garlic - Argentine hardnecks that I mentioned else where - that I have had in the refrigerator for months now and they are all sprouted and ready to go as soon as the mud in my garden dries enough. I have also had summer plantings that did not bulb up or even really go dormant, but still survived the winter. Not much to brag about in the way the next years bulbs either. (My own stock never sees a cooler or the inside of a refrigerator.) So I gotta say my experience goes both ways.

You can still get softneck garlic at some garden centers around here, but most of the bags of 3 will have at least one and maybe more bad bulbs in them already. Here in Minneapolis, Bachmans also has garlic started in nursery packs, that looks a little crowded but is well up and looks vigorous. There is stock around and of course there is always the regular and organic bins at the supermarket. You should get greens for sure, and you can grow that kind of green in a flower pot on a bright window sill in your kitchen. I understand that some Oriental chefs do this as a matter of course.

There is some thought that spring and early summer planted garlic is far more likely to revert to rounds than to bulb up. They cook up just as well.

Thanks for your thoughts guys!

My plan is to stop by the next garden center I see and grab some garlic and see what I get.