You should plant your garlic cloves in the fall. Separate the head into cloves right before you plant them. Long ago I read that when you separate the cloves a chemical reaction occurs in the basal plate, which is the tough part between the roots and the cloves. This reaction gets the clove ready to grow. So don't separate the cloves until you are putting them in the ground.

separate, and plant them as soon as possible.
you will get something to harvest.

if you wait till fall to plant what you have, they will most likely be too dried up to grow.

keith

To garlicstonefarm; not true that it 'must be separated. I've found garlic will begin sprouting in the kitchen if it gets too warm and once it starts to sprout; it will turn bitter.