To tell if a garlic plant is healthy, look at the roots. The roots here are good. The amount of root supports a medium size bulb.

Your garlic has two dried leaves. This points to two outer layers which have dried. This seems a right time to dig up the garlic. I would not want to wait any longer.

I'd say this garlic is in the sub-medium size. I do not see anything wrong. It is just not large.

Thanks for the feedback. I did get greedy and I think I planted them too close, so perhaps that's why they aren't very big.

It also has a lot to do with the size of the seed garlic, soil condition etc.

For larger bulbs you want to plant large cloves from large bulbs, plant in the fall (Oct 15 - Nov 15 for your zone), keep them weeded and mulched, and feed them lots of nitrogen when planting, and in the spring when they emerge above the mulch (feed early March, early April, and early May, then stop). Also a large variety helps a lot.

TomNJ/VA

Thanks - I planted them in Oct from garlic from a local garlic farm. Didn't fertilize, just compost. I planted them in a square foot garden 5 per square foot. This year I plan to do 4 per square foot and also try some directly in the ground as well. Growing garlic is so fun! I ended up harvesting them yesterday because it had been dry and there was a lot of rain in the coming week's forecast. Now they are curing in a screened porch.