Teeny tiny Garlic

[aliyajade]

Hi,
I am a newbie here and a newbie to gardening.

I wanted to grow garlic and so I bought a planting bulb from the garden centre last year. I planted the cloves early last december in organic compost in well draining containers.

As the leaves have started to yellow I decided to check what lay beneath! Very disappointing-the bulbs are very tiny, with no separate cloves-they look like large salad onions.

What have I done wrong? Have I pulled them too early or are they just a dud batch?

Any help gratefully appreciated!
thanks

[applestar]

Where are you located? You mentioned planting in December but then you said containers. Were they outside all winter?
How big containers did you use and how many cloves -- how far apart?

Did you fertilize?

Assuming they had optimum growing conditions, but the harvested garlic didn't grow to full size/separated into cloves, then it's most likely your garlic didn't have long enough time to grow. Another possibility is that the cloves you planted were too small -- but that doesn't seem likely if they were sold as seed garlic. You DID say you separated them into cloves, right? Not plant them still in full bulb form?

There are some regionally specific garlic varieties, but mostly related to winter hardiness. In mild winter areas, garlic is planted as early as September but can be planted as late? -- early? -- as January because they grow all winter long. In northern areas with freeze and frost, garlic is planted around first fall frost until about a month later, or a month before the ground freezes. They are dormant during the freezing months. I planted mine around late October.

In southern areas, garlic is harvested around (April?)-May-June. In my garden, garlic is not ready to harvest until late June to July.