Some say to cut the scapes and put the cut ends in water... I just don't trust myself to do that. I'd leave the plants and let the bulbils develop...

The bulbils will continue to grow if you harvest your garlic now, however they will get bigger if the bulbs are left in the ground. The downside will be that the bulbs will lose their outer wrappers and separate and not keep as well but that shouldn't be a problem if you eat them straight away or keep them for planting stock. I'd follow mav72's advice and leave them in the ground since it's the bulbils you're after.
Have included a link to an article about growing bulbils to rejuvenate and multiply your stock that got me interested in growing bulbils. Slightly outdated because it doesn't mention recent developments in true garlic seed but very useful in all other respects.

Here is a link that might be useful: paul pospisil article

Thank you both for the responses. The informative article linked suggested that it will take one to two weeks longer for the bulbils to develop after one would normally harvest the bulbs. That gives me a good idea of what to expect.

Cheers, Tim

I left the scapes on 7 plants of the Music variety. Of course I read about the small bulbils made by Porcelain type garlic but I was still highly surprised by just how many there are. There are hundreds of bulbils in the picture and that many more still in the bulbil capsules.

Will a large percentage of these be viable? Actually grow when I plant them this fall?

I've been reading the other threads about growing garlic and find them very interesting.

Cheers, Tim

I've been growing Music for years along with several other varieties, and I don't understand the motivation for working with bulbils. You're gonna lose 7 bulbs, which would be a lot of planting stock. I could see doing it with one or two, but then my bulbil adventure was disappointing. I'll never again commit to two years of weeding for one crop of bulbs. The Music is as big as it was the first year I grew it, even recovered from some pretty bad seasons.

hello Tim, if you haven't already found it, there's a thread about growing bulbils where I've included several links to informative blogs and various sites about growing garlic from bulbils. One of them mentions that they are no longer bothering to separate the umbels and planting the entire capsule. the resulting rounds are of a similar size to the separated ones. Your bulbils should remain viable until autumn, although some of the very smallest ones may dehydrate before then. If you can be bothered, plant the very smallest ones straight away and just use them as greens.
Planatus, there are several good reasons for growing bulbils, it's an inexpensive way to dramatically increase your stock at a very low cost and the bulbs that were left to mature fully are still viable planting and/or eating stock so nothing is actually lost; subsequent bulbs will be fully acclimated to your environment and are often more vigourous and it is a safe way to swap garlic as you are reducing the risk of contaminating your garden with fungal diseases and/or nematodes etc.
If they are grown in containers, the weeding is not such a problem although I grow the bulk of my bulbils in the open ground at a plot in a community garden.

Here is a link that might be useful: bulbil thread