What in the shrimpy elephant garlic?!

Zone 6b. I planted elephant garlic cloves last November. One I ordered from a company and the other was just whatever I bought from Walmart. This was my first time planting elephant garlic, and yes I removed the scapes.

Well, it's no bigger than my metechi and musik varieties normally get (oddly, THOSE are also small this year). On a positive note, there are little babies hanging off of most of them.

Why is my garlic small this year? The soil has lots of clay, but that's what I always plant in. I planted it in a new bed, adjacent to where I've planted in the past. Was there too much rain?  If I plant those babies this fall, will they need to be harvested and replanted, like you do bulbils?

Hi Constancia,
That is difficult when things do not grow as they are supposed to. I will also say, that while I cut off the scape, I have not found much difference in size between plants I have cut the scape off vs ones I left the scape.

I've grown quite a bit of garlic, and I find that lack of water, weed pressure, planting time, and plant spacing are the most common reasons garlic gets stunted.

The planting time sounds fine. How much water did they get?

Did they get weeded (or mulched to keep the weeds down)?

How far apart did you plant them?

Do you make compost?  Maybe some compost tea would have given the garlic much needed nutrients?

How did you amend the new beds?

I had all the same questions as you. In my case the bulbs were small because a spring planted.

In regards to the "babies"; according to garlicstore.com "You can also opt to plant the smaller cloves, which grow outside the bulb, called corms. When planted, corms produce a non-flowering plant in the first year with a single large clove. In the second year, the clove will begin to separate into multiple cloves."

As for why your bulbs were small, no idea. Maybe have a soil test if its a new bed?