Garlic - planting bulbils

I just harvested a big clump of garlic with nine heads of different sizes. I think I planted it 2-3 years ago. It didn’t grow much at first and I forgot about it. I didn’t cut the scapes so the heads aren’t large but usable.  I wish I would have left one head as perennial. I guess I’ll plant one back. Should I use the largest or smallest head or a few separated cloves for growing them as perennials? There is only room for one big clump there.  I will find places for a few more.  This was the first hard neck garlic, that I’ve planted, German Red. It was extremely healthy. It seems better adapted to western Missouri than soft necks.  I think we are about the same latitude as Germany.

I think I have about two hundred of the tiny bulbs from the tops of the plants. Replanting my own garlic cloves has always been a problem because of our wet spring weather. Usually,  the heads don’t keep and I think get some soil disease. Planting the bulbs from the top seems like the perfect solution. I know it will take an extra year or more. I think I will plant some at the base of fruit trees to confuse insects and plant the rest pretty close together in a planter the first year. Can I plant these now or should I wait for fall? It seems like nature was about to plant them now, so maybe this is the best time. But it is hot and dry now.

Ken W Wilson wrote:I just harvested a big clump of garlic with nine heads of different sizes. I think I planted it 2-3 years ago. It didn’t grow much at first and I forgot about it. I didn’t cut the scapes so the heads aren’t large but usable.  I wish I would have left one head as perennial. I guess I’ll plant one back. Should I use the largest or smallest head or a few separated cloves for growing them as perennials? There is only room for one big clump there.  I will find places for a few more.  This was the first hard neck garlic, that I’ve planted, German Red. It was extremely healthy. It seems better adapted to western Missouri than soft necks.  I think we are about the same latitude as Germany.

I think I have about two hundred of the tiny bulbs from the tops of the plants. Replanting my own garlic cloves has always been a problem because of our wet spring weather. Usually,  the heads don’t keep and I think get some soil disease. Planting the bulbs from the top seems like the perfect solution. I know it will take an extra year or more. I think I will plant some at the base of fruit trees to confuse insects and plant the rest pretty close together in a planter the first year. Can I plant these now or should I wait for fall? It seems like nature was about to plant them now, so maybe this is the best time. But it is hot and dry now.

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Well, Missouri has roughly a latitude of 38 and Munich (the biggest town in the south) of 48.
Not sure if weather conditions are similar, but here is what I do - and this year I had wonderful garlic for the first time:
Plant the individual cloves in good soil in October. They will start to sprout before Winter.
During winter, nothing much will happen, if the cloves "pop up" too much during frost periods push them back into the soil. You can apply some mulch to avoid frost damages (when you don't have lots of snow). In spring the plants will really shoot up. Add some compost, liquid feed or similar.
I have to be careful not to harvest too late or the heads will start to rot from the outside during rain periods.
Here we can usually harvest late June/beginning of July.

In previous year I just left entire heads in the earth which formed some clumps over the years, but never a nice solid head. So I would remove all remaining garlic when the leaves start to turn yellow and replant the  single cloves in fall.

I didn't look up the latitudes. That is interesting. I have heard that our climate is similar. Around 1990 I looked into raising grapes and learned that  before Prohibition, Missouri had been second highest in wine production after CA. The industry here was based mainly on German grape varieties.  I didn’t have the funds for the vineyard though.

Since I have lots of bulbels (spelling?), I decided to plant some now as an experiment. I think I planted about 40.

Only some patches of Germany are warm enough for grape cultivation, although we have high quality wines here.
The country is divided into "traditional beer-drinking regions" and "traditional wind-drinking regions" (I live in beer country although I am not an enthusiast).

Keep us updated on the bulbils. I once harvested some but waited too long to put them into the soil - they had dried up too much and never sprouted.
So putting them back into the soil right away seems like a better plan.