Arlene (Pirl), I planted all of my garlic on October 26th last fall; basically you want to plant it whenever you would plant daffodils, tulips and the like. You want it to have a chance to start making roots, but not tops (which would get frozen back and deplete some of the bulb's energy).
Ken, I "kind of" mulch the garlic; after planting it I always add a layer of compost, and usually I cover it with "floating row cover" but last fall I just gave it a layer of leaves and stuff that we had put on the garden... It seemed to get a little bit later start this year, but kind of hard to tell for sure with all the weather variations.
Interesting about the hardneck types not making the scapes... has that happened for you before?
