Garlic Helpful Tips

[eyegrotom]

I have decided to give Garlic a try.
So I need some helpful tips. I am in Southern California, I have got both Softneck & Hardneck.
Tips like when to plant, do I need to chill them first? Anything else that I should be aware of. Thanks. Mike

[karstopography]

By no means a garlic expert, but chilling hardnecks for 8-10 weeks in a very cold fridge allows them to head up here in my hardneck garlic unfriendly climate. I planted my hardnecks in mid-late November and they never go dormant here and probably won’t go dormant there either in SoCal. Ground doesn’t freeze here so the fall planted garlic will soon sprout and continue to grow, never die back in the winter, for the entire winter and spring. With no die back, the days to maturity get truncated by 90 -120 days so expect nine month garlic to mature in six months. I did get scapes with my hardnecks in April and early in May and the garlic was ready a couple of weeks later. Softnecks won’t bolt. SoCal winters aren’t all that dissimilar to Texas Coastal winters. Summer doesn’t matter since the garlic should done be long summer.