I Have Garlic!

Very late summer, last year, I planted a big pot full of Christopher Ranch garlic cloves. A couple of months ago, I dug one up and it had formed a round ball but no cloves. I stopped watering. A month ago, I pulled two, still just a round ball...I threw the two I pulled in the garden bed and just let them stay there. I checked this morning, and those two had cloves, so I pulled the rest from the pot, all had cloves. So, here are my babies, smaller than Christopher Ranch's (next year I will remember to give them fertilizer) but garlic, still. So tonight I am roasting some cloves, skin intact, with rosemary potatoes....can't wait to squeeze them out and taste.
So. here they are, dirt and all.

The coven of vampires have left Redding.

I just dug up half a dozen myself, this afternoon; they're drying on the picnic table outside. My first try at growing garlic.

I just dug up half a dozen myself, this afternoon; they're drying on the picnic table outside. My first try at growing garlic.

Have you a picture? What was your experience to get them to form cloves?

Maybe I am wrong but I always have felt that the flavor from using fresh garlic while intense is more mellow that using the older garlic heads found in stores.

Karen do you leave them in the ground until the greens die back?
I have recently started growing garlic and I understand that is when to harvest them, then let the whole plant dry a little and
then I plaited them and hung them in the kitchen.

Yes, I was told to stop watering when most of the greens die back. At that point, they had not formed cloves. They got really dry, and the stems dried up and most fell off. Did you hang yours before they formed?

Maybe I'll take a shot later.
I didn't do anything - I stuck the cloves in the ground last fall. They sprouted over the winter, and this spring I put a drip line through them when I set up my drip system. I dug them up because all the stems had fallen over after the very hot weather last week, and I figured there was no percentage in leaving them in the ground. They do have cloves, though. They're much bigger heads than I expected.

Here's my garlic this morning. I kept searching all around the house for round tuits and finally found one.

Looks good, John. It looks like you hit harvest time about right, the standard advice for most varieties being to harvest when 1/2 - 2/3 of the leaves are brown. FWIW, conventional wisdom has it that the drying/curing should take place in the shade. I'm not sure exactly what the effects of sun tastes like but understand direct sun can burn/cook the bulbs. If it's just a little morning sun you might get away with it but if you have a place in the shade it would be better.

Thanks, Mark! I can find a shady place.