Ellen Abramczyk

Garlic from the grocery store may be irradiated if it is imported and thus not able to sprout. The exception is organic or farmers market grown locally. Now I grow enough to reserve toes for planting late fall.
In southern Ontario in Canada I plant my garlic from October to mid November (before snow comes and I freeze my little fingers off) It's nice to give the garlic toes a chance to develop a few roots but I've never had a crop fail.  I've planted an 'emergency' crop in the spring and it did not produce well and I would not recommend it.
In this region in July the leaves on the plants start to brown.  If you harvest before the majority of leaves brown the bulbs can be tender and easily damaged. Make sure you've had no rain for five days before harvest. Dry is better.  I've learned to leave all soil on but gently knocked off large soil clumps and tie the tops in groups of 10 and hang in my garden shed for a few weeks. The soil/dirt dries and wipes off easily when you finally cut the bulbs off their stems.

If you are a sourdough bread baker you may want to try using a calculated amount of pickle brine in a light rye with caraway.  How much brine to use depends on the the percentage of salt in your brine solution.  For my brined pickles I use 4% sea salt.  That equals 4g of salt for every 100g of water.  Depending on how much water or liquid and salt my particular recipe requires I can determine how much brine provides that salt and use water for the balance.  If my recipe, for example, requires 12g of salt and 400g water.  I could use 300g brine and 100g water and fulfill the 12g of salt I need and the total 400g water. That's a lot of brine use.