Some of the garlic I've been planting recently is already sending up shoots. It will get growing well through early winter until any particular hard freezes can knock it back a bit. I mulched very lightly when I planted, but before it gets extremely cold I'll have applied 2 to 3 inches of ground leaf mulch. In this area, I really don't think you'll have any problem with any kind of garlic. As soon as temperatures start breaking in late winter/early spring it will start growing well. By sometime in June or so, as lower leaves are yellowing significantly, it will be ready to harvest. Good luck.

I planted elephant garlic I purchased at the supermarket last month along with some regular garlic I had on hand. I grow in a raised bed and I have covered the bed with straw that I will turn in the soil in spring. I figure the straw will help keep the temps a little warmer but I'm not to sure it will change it much.

I was at my garden plot yesterday to see that the garlic i had planted in October has sprouted up already!
They are in raised beds made from bricks.
I just harvested the last of my carrots yesterday too in that same bed.
I hope the garlic last through this winter. Think they will?

i have already lost my willow and paw paw seedlings due to that 15 degrees we had the other night/ day :(

I also planted store bought organic this fall for the first time in early October. Since we had our first killing frost quite late this year (around early Nov. instead of around second week of Oct.), the garlic kept growing. I read that the Fall garlic is suppose to grow just a little bit leaves and go dormant in the Winter, which gives it a head start in the Spring. Will my quite grown garlic be OK? I am also a Fairfax VA gardener.

So far my garlic has survived the freezes and some of the plants have grown through the 4 inch layer of leaf mulch and have leaves from 2 to 6 inches above the mulch. Everyone has told me that it will be okay through the winter. I believe yours will too. I live in Kings Park West. You?

Seems like I did not mulch it enough! They look fine so far but I think I will add a layer of leaf mulch just in case. I am near Chantilly high school, a mom of 2nd grader and a kindergartner. Nice to meet a fellow Fairfax gardener!

I live in Burke and just planted garlic for the first time. I lightly covered it with straw when I planted and added several more inches of straw in December. The linked blog has alot of good gardening info. she is located in Virginia, but I think in the south and near the bay. so her conditions are a bit different than northern VA. She states that store-bought garlic can be contaminated. I purchased my garlic from the vendor that she mentions.

Here is a link that might be useful: good garden blog

Juless- I also live in the very northern edge of Burke in "Kings Park West." That was a good blog; I found it informative. I agree with the author concerning eating/buying Chinese food stuffs. I have had similar experiences with produce from other countries like Guatomala. Once I ate raspberries from there in a fruit salad purchased in CA and I, and 25,000 other people, got food poisoning. Although I don't believe the garlic bulbs I planted came from China; I don't believe that any potential contamination would harmfully affect the garlic harvested from plants grown from the Cinese cloves; but, in any case, I prefer to buy US products. I read somewhere that a lot of garlic is grown in the US; was I wrong?

The garlic will get knocked back a little when we have extreme cold here in Virginia, but as soon as things start warming up in the spring they really take off. Even the question of whether you mulch or not is not all that important, though I think mulch helps a lot just in moderating the moisture level in the soil, preventing it from drying completely out. All of my garlic varieties are up and growing nicely, even the ones I got planted very late in mid-November.

drmbear - What varieties did you plant? My garlic plants are still doing well; I have about 15 of the 120 that I planted that have poked through the 4-inch leaf mulch. I still have a wire mesh on top of the mulch to keep the leaves from blowing away. I can probably remove it any day now. I am more excited about my leeks and artichokes. I have never grown leeks before, so I am interested in seeing how it is done. I planted them inside under lights. The leeks are now about 2 inches high. I have about 20 artichoke seedlings that are about 1.5 inches tall. I only have room in my garden for about 10 artichokes. I will pick the best 10 and give the others away or trade them. I am going to plant the leeks about 6 inches deep in April so as not to expose them to too much cold.

Let's see - I have an elephant garlic that I've been propagating and moving around for nearly 30 years that I'll never be without. We eat lots of it year round. I also have a Spanish Red and a Spanish White, Inchellium red, Music, some Turban variety that is new this year for me, California Early, and maybe another that I don't recall. I also grow yellow and white potato onions, red and gray shallots, I've been trying to get a good stand of perennial leeks growing, a never-ending supply of Egyptian Topsetting Onions, a new-to-me potato/bunching onion from Texas that looks promising, and chives and garlic chives(which will seed everywhere if allowed). I'm experimenting with some new varieties, but I really don't have a great desire to be growing all sorts of things - I just really want things that are dependable, that we like, that keeps us in what we like for eating throughout the year. I haven't needed to purchase garlic for eating in many, many years. If I can get to that point for all the other onions we want to eat, that will be amazing. And then there are all the other things I grow.....