I hear you about Music - I was so bummed that my entire bed failed, because up to this point it has been the best producer for me, with the bonus of extra-large garlic scapes (which are actually more important to me than the garlic itself!). I did get a few decent heads so I am saving every clove to plant this fall - if it fails again, I'll start over next year with fresh Music stock from a different source. I plan to amend my beds more heavily than usual with compost and mulch only very lightly, if at all - I think the combination of wet weather and a heavy-ish layer of mulch (because I hate weeding) is what killed me this year.

I usually plant around Halloween but I might try to get them in a week early this year. Just depends on when I get a free weekend with decent weather!

I have been doing my mulch in the spring after the plants are up maybe 4". I also hate weeding. It is nice that garlic seems to be up and growing before most weeds sprout.

I planted Music from Filaree for the first time last fall. They were decent sized but not huge, maybe 2” wide on average. Most likely my fault for not fertilizing and weeding often. I’ll try again from saved stock. I received Kostyn’s Red Russian bulbils a few years ago and they are great producers and on average approximately 2 1/2”. I have some Phillips, Spanish Roja and Siberian.

I got no idea of names, but I'm growing local garlic with stories, lol. From spring 2011 to fall 2015 I had been garlic adopted by a kindly folk that sent me seed garlic and and working it to a good couple years of growing.. to fail.

Back in spring 2016 I had a fail. All 9 of my hardnecks failed to come up, though the softneck planted in a section in the middle of the hardnecks sprouted up ok-ish. That summer I kind of lost the bed to weeds and by fall cleanup I realized I had a LOT of little garlics kind of dying off in the softneck area only- and missed harvest by a couple months, lol. So just left them in the ground and harvested them as "Mother Clumps" in 2017. Had an ok harvest of "Mother Clumps" last year. This year was a really good harvest year- and I made sure to leave the little bits behind so hopefully I'm growing "Mother Clumps" again next year.

Not sure if it's because I've been letting it grow like I have or some other garlic is in what was originally just one softneck kind. There's softnecks, hardnecks, and I'm not sure what that grows scapes that get big tasty bulbis clusters breaking out of the scape a few inches up from the soil line. Some are whiter, some get pretty purple and rose tints in their wrappers. I like the range of sizes- heads little and tender enough to pickle whole up to decent grocery store and a bit bigger sized heads all in one harvest.

Also in 2016, had someone gift me with some garlic "scrap". They worked with a family member that runs a small local garlic farm and usually has "scrap" garlic not suitable/big/uniform enough for their commercial needs under names, but big/good enough to mix the ends of all the kinds to the fall farmers markets.. friends wanting to use up "scrap" or heh, fed to the guys livestock if too small.. I had talked to the guy one day at the shop randomly about my odd garlic fail. A few weeks later he dropped off a couple pounds of "scrap". Anywho, most of that got dug into a couple perennial beds in fall 2016 and now have gotten clumpy too enough that those will see their grow out year for harvest in 2020. So I'm growing "Vliets Scrap". "Vliets Scrap" has hard and soft necks, but I haven't seen any of the neat bulbis clusters like what's in "Mother Clumps".

I'm doing some purposeful seeding again this year for the first time since the whole 2016 fail.

"Bean Lady's Bigs". This is a local market seller. I got good garlic from her in the past for a couple years, then didn't really see her face for a season or two- turned out she had a bit of a general garden fail, and was bouncing back again with some wonderful fresh dried beans.. (yay for having Tiger Eye beans again) and some garlic she wasn't sure of the name of. Like me, she had some mixups while regrowing and wasn't sure of which hardneck was the one that went strong. It was nice meeting up with her again and chatting about it all. I opted to call it "Bean Lady's Bigs", not her.

"Snip Braid". This softneck was found at a roadside stand while I got lost one day this summer. It was a honor box setup, with a few different veggies, some little potted up herbs... And some garlic braids. I could tell it was home-grown/braided. Braided uglies, lol. lopsided, a bit dirty into the root base, dangly trimmed roots with greens twisted like only a farm with kids and a roadside stand can do.. along with snips to "big cut heads, 3/$1.00, small 5/1.00". Cleaned and trimmed braids of a dozen nice ones were 8 bucks.

I opted for the best 2 heads off the snip braids for a taste and seed, and paid the buck because they were big and nice.

I'll be planting my own saved stock again this fall. 133 total in a 19x7 grid in a 4'x10' raised bed. About half will be German White, 1/4 Chesnok Red, and 1/4 Spanish Roja. I also have a few Music bulbs so I might plant 7 or 14 or those if they are still in good shape in about 5 weeks.

This is down from about 10 varieties a few years ago. I'd like to add a Silverskin softneck if I can find one locally. All the softnecks I see at farmer's markets are artichoke types that often grow the stem bulbils that beesneeds described. I don't like those because it compromises the bulb skins.

hi Jack,

I get the stem bulbils on my Japanese, but rarely an actual scape. That doesn't seem to affect how well they store for me, but then Japanese isn't a long storing type anyway. In the past, some years the Japanese almost rivals Music for size and it also has very large cloves. It is quite a bit earlier, too, and seems to like getting planted earlier as well. Not so much this past year however. The only variety that wasn't really a disappointment this year was Music and that was about only adequate.

I have been keeping my own seed now for quite some time, but have been noticing that some local nurseries are offering hard stem varieties for fall planting. Some are local grown, but one place had seed obviously produced and distributed along with its Dutch tulips and fall ornamentals pretty obviously from the Netherlands (at least the labels seemed to be printed there). I couldn't resist and added a couple of their nice Music bulbs and i couldn't tell the difference. I didn't lose any; so I know they are there, but they merged right into my own stock.

After I work up my beds, I sit down with a paint program and map out what I am going to plant where on a gif. Ilike to let the beds sit for a few weeks. This year though that is only going to be for a week or two. Running late again this fall, pretty much like last spring! Then over the course of the next season, I make notes on that gif using the script function. (LOL every year I get a little more careful with the added notes---)

BTW my onion seedlings are some of them pushing their 6th and 7th leaves and have had several hair cuts. They are growing into the lights; so I am going to raise the light fixtures a bit.

I am still running long day lengths, but will very soon start to cut those back. I think I still have time for some more growing on before bulb up and dry down. At least I hope so. This is the very first time that I have gotten onion seedlings close to this far along inside! New experience for me.