softneck behavior

[tjg911]

i'm not all that familiar with softnecks, this is the 1st year i grew a lot of them. for the past week some have been leaning like a small critter walked thru the bed pushing them out of it's way and i suspect that a small critter is climbing the fence as i see digging in the garlic and onion beds from time to time lately.

today it is worse, several plants are almost down on the ground. the ones that are more noticeably leaning don't have the bottom 1/2 of their leaves dying back which in hardnecks indicates it is time to dig them but the very bottom leaves are starting to lose the green color indicating they are starting to be ready. everything is early this year by 2 weeks and while i normally dig hardneck garlic in late july (7/20 to 7/28) and softnecks a week or 2 earlier iirc, so maybe the softnecks garlic is ready to dig.

so i pulled 3 plants that were virtually on the ground (too tight to dig these 3 with other plants around them) and they have good sized bulbs and appear to be ready for harvest despite these 3 and none of the other softnecks have the bottom 1/2 of their leaves drying out.

do you gauge softneck harvest time based upon them tipping vs the bottom 1/2 of the plant's leaves drying up as is the method with hardnecks? i have grown softnecks 2 other seasons but i had 12 or 24 plants and i can't recall them tipping. i do think that when i grew softnecks they were ready about 2 weeks ahead of the hardnecks. i want these for storage so i don't want them to burst the wrapper and reduce storage.

tom