Hello! I planted my hardneck garlic in containers early October (zone 7b) and am not sure if it's ready to harvest--to me, it seems like roughly 1/3 of the leaves are dead/browning, and that's a harvest-ready indicator I've seen a lot. However, I gently checked out some of the bulbs, and they're tiny! I cut the scapes either when they reached above the leaves or were halfway through their first curl.

It's been 30 weeks (longer than most grow times) and I don't know if I did something wrong and just need to harvest small bulbs because it's time, or if I should allow them to keep growing since each has a few strong, green stalks.

Pics attached. Thank you!

Dont be too hasty to pull based on me, but steel yourself for someone to tell you this is as good as they can do, given pot growing.
I'm same zone, garlic in ground late fall, mine's no better.

Thanks so much for responding. Sigh... On Youtube, it seems like people grow HUGE garlic in containers. Better luck next year, I guess...

Anya, although I grow my garlic in the ground and not in pots, I do think yours is at its end stage... I believe the main problem with the bulbs being small is that those plants are much too crowded in the pots. In the ground I leave at least 6 inches in all directions between the plants (and, in my northern climate, still do not harvest huge bulbs, but they're reasonably large).

That said, it wouldn't hurt to wait a little longer to harvest yours; but if you want intact bulbs be sure to pull it out before all the leaves are dead or you will end up with a bunch of individual cloves.

I agree. There are too many plants in that pot. If that is a #1 nursery pot, 6 inches across at the top x 8 inches deep, it should hold one garlic plant. A garlic plant's root system is pretty massive.

The ultimate size of a garlic bulb you grow will also depend in part on how large the clove is that you planted. All other things being equal, a larger clove to begin with will yield a larger harvest bulb.

Sandy and Rick -- thank you! This is my first time and I bought so much seed garlic that I stuffed the pots. One container is 10" and the other's 14", so there's more space than it appears in the photos, but still, I clearly crowded them. This is hugely helpful for next year!

Back with a hail mary/hair-brained idea: would it be worth putting new soil on them to increase available nutrients? I fertilized with bone meal and then an all-purpose fertilizer at the start of the summer, and I don't want to over do that... Could more soil help at this late stage? I considered transplanting some of them so they had more room, but read garlic doesn't like to be transplanted.

Thanks again, all!

Definitely no more fertilizer now. At this stage, the garlic is preparing its bulb for next year, not growing it. Fertilizing now would favor the growing stage, which is opposite of all the other cues from nature. Fertilizing now might produce slightly bigger bulbs, but they will dehydrate and rot much more quickly, despite any bulb curing efforts you afford. I don't think they would even last until your next season's planting time.

I totally agree with Rick's reply.

The good thing about garlic is that it can be used at pretty much any time - you can pull it young to use as "green garlic" (like green onions), you can plant it in the spring and harvest the little bulbs that will give you (whenever I've done that, my bulbs didn't divide into cloves but were just solid roundish balls), or harvest the mature bulbs. I don't know what the "normal" time to harvest garlic would be in your area - but mine is generally ready to pull at the end of July or very early in August so I wouldn't be surprised if this month would be the usual time for you to be harvesting it, so you wouldn't want to be doing more fertilizing or anything at this point.

I'd love to see some photos of your harvest, Anya!

Thanks to you both again. I planted in early October (which was too early--so many lessons I'm learning; hopefully I'll remember them) so I am definitely close. I mean, according to some info, like the video below, I'm very ready, but other gardeners have said to wait until 2/3 of the leaves have died back.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

I will share pics of my harvest--even if they're embarrassing!

My indicator for harvesting is to have at least 3 (green) leaves left on the plants... each leaf literally represents a layer of "wrapping" over the bulb.

Ken Ramsey @drdawg does (or did) grow a lot of garlic in containers... he might have some additional advice for you on growing in the pots

I grew the vast majority of my garlics (I usually planted 12-15 varieties each year) in the ground, but also grew it in large, 24" pots. I generally planted 6-8 cloves per pot. All my garlics performed about the same regardless of whether it was pot grown or in-ground grown. I typically planted my cloves in mid-October, Anya, so if anything, you are planting too late, certainly not too early. I was in NE Mississippi, with a far different climate than you in NY. Your first frost date is probably a month before mine. I would suggest planting your cloves in mid-September, but that's only a guess.

You might wait a couple of weeks to pull your garlic, but the size probably isn't going to be much larger. You certainly don't want to fertilize now. Were your garlic plants growing in full sun? They should be.

I used to plant lots of them, I put them in the ground in Sept, and I pull them out the latest is July. The garlic festival at Gilroy is in July for a reason.

Thanks so much, drdawg. They are in full sun--I have south-facing fire escapes, so the light is great. It's so helpful to know the pot size/# of bulbs that worked for you. As @weedwacker and @leftwood sagely pointed out, I really crowded my bulbs... Not again!

I planted them on October 5th, which was over a month before the Farmer's Almanac estimated frost date of 11/12. Then I got really worried because we had a long warm spell and they sprouted fast and grew over a foot tall before it got properly cold.

I know you were unwittingly pulled into this thread, but do you mind telling me what kind of soil you used in your containers? I used Miracle-Gro's Performance Organics Container Mix because it was great for my tomatoes, but I think it might have been too heavy.

Thanks again to everyone who replied so helpfully. Pics will arrive soon!

Anya, because I grew plants by the 1000's (mostly tropicals), I made my own soils for potting and to amend my native soil (I still make it by the truckload). Heck, I even made my own orchid media. I don't know what your big-box stores carry in NY, but the following is readily available in the South: 2 parts composted cow manure (something like Black Kow), 1 part wood mulch (I like cypress), and 1 part coarse or super-coarse perlite. To every 5 gal. of mix, add a fistfull of a balanced, slow release fertilizer (like Osmacote).

You can substitute one of the pre-package potting soils for the composted cow manure, like what you mentioned, Anya. You would slightly alter the ratio to 3 parts potting soil, 1 part hardwood mulch, and 1 part perlite. If your pre-package potting soil has slow release fertilizer, you wouldn't need to add anymore until early spring. The fertilizer in that potting soil may be 3-4 mo, rather than 6-9 mo. slow release.

DrDawg, its good to hear this mix works well for you and has no peat.

Peat is probably in just about every pre-packaged potting soil, Sally, but unless I'm growing something that's acid-loving, I have little use for it.

Thanks again for more great info!

Here is the first harvest! My expectations were soooooo low, so I'm feeling pretty happy? They are on the smaller size and two are green garlic because I pulled them a bit too early (or it was never going to happen). A few more are still in the containers because they still have a fair amount of green leaves.

I used some of it tonight in this recipe (which I swear by): https://cooking.nytimes.com/re...

Wasn't sure how cooking fresh/wet garlic differed from cured, but everything smells great so far.

Way to go, Anya!

as far as I know, there isn't much difference in using fresh garlic as opposed to "cured" garlic, other than it's stickier and harder to peel