Nikki, As for the "when to plant what?" question, you might want to do a web search and obtain a planting guide for your area. I have one for Louisiana which I've been using since the 1970's. It covers pretty much everything. It was published by the Louisiana Cooperative Extension Serivce. You should be able to find something similar. Our guide indicates that I would plant garlic between October 1 and November 30. Surely not the case for your area..

On your other question about keeping bulbs from year-to-year, I did exactly this and planted them last October. My garlic crop failed, most have rotted. On the possiblity is that my bulbs had aquired a bit of contamiation during the holding process, I've decided to purchase fresh stock each year. Not sure if this will solve the problem. In any case, I will find out because I don't have enought for the November planting anyway..

Nikki

You would have to harvest it this year. They will probably be smaller bulbs but that's OK.

For next year, plant your garlic late October to harvest the following year. The bulbs will be bigger.

Yes, garlic survives the winter freeze. in fact, it needs a couple good weeks of cold weather in order to trigger it to bulb. You can get the same effect by keeping it in a cold frige for several weeks before planting in spring.

Ok thank you for the information. I wasn't sure what to do. This is the first year for garlic...