The garlic is starting to shoot those real thin wispy leaves again, this time earlier than last year. I pulled one yesterday and it was just a 1" wide round. For the past two years the garlic has been ready about the first week in May. I don't think so this year. It just may be a whole crop of rounds?
Last night I went back to my post about this situation last spring, read all the responses again and I want to thank Sari for the input on vernalization! Then I spent the next three hours searching online and found that insufficient vernalization and/or the breaking of it is quite possibly the problem, or at least a big contributor. We have had some real temperature swings.
During the search I found a wonderful site on growing garlic by Grey Duck Garlic, located in Washington. They no longer grow garlic at their farm but they decided to leave up their garlic information pages in case anyone needed them. And they have a whole page devoted to growing garlic here in the South. Boy, that was sooo handy! I think the refrigerator technique for vernalizing garlic pre-plant will be my next step come fall. And I might switch up varieties if this crop fails or at least add a few new varieties if this crop makes it.
Here's their web link:
http://greyduckgarlic.com/Southern_G...wer_Guide.html
If anyone has any other ideas about the cause of this problem, feel free to shout out! I'm all ears.