Garlic down but still green

[mattie g]

As you can see, quite a few of the plants in my fall-planted Inchelium Red bed have fallen, but they're still all green. By the looks of it, an animal of some sort may have trampled it (maybe even my dog), as we really haven't had much in the way of wind recently. From what I can tell, there's no sign of damage other than some of it laying down. I dug down a little to have a look at a few and they haven't fully bulbed yet - some of them are even quite small.

Question is...are these plants OK to leave in the ground for now, or is there a reasonable danger that the "trampling" has disturbed it enough to lead to rot? I'd prefer the former, but if I need to pull it, I'll go ahead an do it. I'd like to keep this stuff around for a while, and use some for this fall's planting, if at all possible.

Floppy

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Flattened

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[gumbo2176]

I don't see why they wouldn't recover if just tramped down a bit. As long as the stems weren't broken or any root damage, which it doesn't appear to have happened, I'd just let them be. With the amount of time it takes for garlic to make bulbs, what's a little more time.

[mattie g]

Thanks for the reply, gumbo. That's kind of what I was thinking, but it's better to have someone tell me that what I was thinking wasn't way off.

There isn't any stem damage, and there's no good way of telling if there was root damage without pulling some. Maybe I'll pull up one of the plants that's leaning the most in order to get a feel for the extent of any possible damage under the soil. I'm sure I can find a use for it!

I'm all about being patient if it means good-sized bulbs come harvest time!

[gumbo2176]

I pulled my Elephant Garlic about 3 weeks ago and had quite a few the size of a baseball. Some of the cloves are at least 4 times the size of regular garlic like you get in the market. I put it in around mid September last year.

[rainbowgardener]

I'd leave it. Still looks healthy and should perk up again from the trampling, but the leaves are pretty small compared to mine (planted beginning of October) , so I'm thinking it has a ways to go yet. For future reference, it looks a bit crowded and might get bigger if given a bit more space to grow.

[jal_ut]

I think it will still grow. Leave it in.

[mattie g]

Thanks, rainbow and jal. I've been checking it the last couple days and, aside from being low to the ground, the plants seem just fine. We've had a lot of rain recently, so my main concern now is getting the ground to dry out a little before the next round tomorrow night. The soil is quite wet right now. Ugh...

Rainbow...I plant them about 4" apart and 4-5" between rows. I don't have a lot of space, so I have to make do with what I've got. That part of the garden gets a little less sun at this time of the year than some other areas, so it might grow a little more slowly. This is my first year with a large planting of garlic, so I'll have a much better feel for how to plan my planting going forward.