To me, it looks like you've got some pretty healthy plants with winter burn on the tips of the leaves, which is normal. I'd let them grow.

Aha that makes sense. Thanks!

I think Wolverine is right. My rocas haven't shown the first scape yet, and the biggest varieties look a lot like your plants.

I use three criteria for when to harvest the hardnecks:
Counting from the date in which most of the scapes are cut, the bulbs will be ready to dig about 20 days later.

Fully grown plants have 7 to 9 leaves. When the three lowest leaves turn yellow and tan, but the three highest leaves are still green, I think about harvesting.
When 30 percent of the total foliar mass including lower, middle and upper leaves appear to be withering or show brown tips, it means the plants have reduced the nutrients and moisture supplied to the leaves. Time to stop watering and start harvesting.

Not at all ready. Look for the four or five dead leaves at the bottom of the stalk.

Planatus great information! I need specifics to know when to harvest as I haven't done this before.
I planted german red, purple italian, music and another variety I can't recall. Is it common that some of them would not produce scapes or do I absolutely have to wait to harvest until all of the plants have developed scapes?
Also two of my plants do have scapes but they have not curled. The scapes have been on there for at least two weeks.

I usually get scapes on all I plant, but this year the purple italian is only showing scapes on one of the three beds I planted. It was a dry year and I may have let them dry out too much or it could be that I fertilized a lot less this year.

If they look like they are dying then they are ready to pull out scape or no. Many times the scapes will keep growing as they garlic is being cured on plants which have not shown scapes before dying down.

Once you engage in the curing process, you will understand why hardnecks have to produce scapes. In the cured garlic, the base of the scape forms a hard, dry "stick" that probably helps regulate moisture levels in the cloves.

Music always produces big, fat scapes. Most curl but a few don't. Cut them off and eat them.

thank you so much for posting this thread, I jumped on here today to see if anyone had garlic that looked like mine!

I've been growing it for about three years and can now say, it's different every year!

cheers

Definitely not even close to ready. They will grow scapes first, which you probably should cut off, unless you were wanting to grow seed. Eventually they will start drying up... The whole top, not just a few tips. Now might be a good time to give them a shot of fish emulsion, if you haven't already.

Upon further investigation, the two plants I thought were scaping are actually onion plants from last season that have gone to flower (seed)! That is why the so called scape didn't curl!! Now looking at my other garlic plants they are developing curly scapes just like they are supposed to! Thanks for helping me figure this out.

BTW, but soft necks don't scape , do they ?
So here the hint to harvest is yellowing the leaves, only.

I have grown garlic three years. But not this year though.

Yes, soft necks do indeed scape. I grow Early Italian Purple, German Red, Italian Late and Sicillian which all produce scapes if watered and fed enough. Perhaps it is because of the very long growing season here, but they do produce them.

For clarity, (from my experience) softnecks don't truly scape, but sometimes they revert.

Softneck garlic has been selected over the years (centuries?) to no longer produce scapes, mostly for the ease of harvest. Nature creeps back in via recessive genes and scapes do appear sometimes.

Of my favorite softneck varieties (early red italian and Lorz italian), which I grow about 1000 plants of each year, i've rarely seen a scape over 18 years. This is probably because I continue to select my own seed every season and wouldn't plant one with a hardneck.

To confuse matters more there are also the Asiatiac, Turban and Creole types which are referred to as "weakly bolting hardnecks", meaning they don't always make a scape though they are still classified as "Ophioscorodon" (hardneck) as compared to "Sativum" (softneck).

Below is a link to a great website with more garlic info that you could ever read. I've sold seed to them in the past and highly recommend the company.

-Mark

Here is a link that might be useful: Gourmet garlic website