I planted an “extra hardy” of nearly $20/pound seed German harneck last Fall, as that is what’s recommended for it. Most of it had not survived, nor thrived the previous year, so I used what little I had from that harvest to replant. It did do better than the previous year, but still nothing to write home about.
I planted 2 or 3 varieties of soft neck garlics this Spring, all either bought at the store, or at the organic market. They are not hardy enough to over-winter in our Zone-4/5 climate, so get planted as early as possible in the spring.
In any case, garlic is a heavy feeder, and needs P for root development, more than it does N for tops or K for flowers—not wanted. Also, it needs to be kept fairly well watered, same as onions, to maintain growth.
As for tips, I’m too new at garlic to have any, but Tubebender is a garlic grower par excellance!
As for fall planting, we only get a single short growing season, so can’t really do succession planting; however, depending how long you have until freeze—not frost—you can try any of several quick maturing cabbage family crops, especially if you can start with transplants. Also carrots can work, and stay in until the ground freezes; nothing wrong with harvesting them before full maturity if you need to. Also short season peas, usually bush types, to ensure maturity before they’re winter killed. Depending on your climate, you might also get fall spinach. Basically anything that is low number of growing days that would be planted in cool early spring weather can be used for a fall crop, if your August isn’t a real baker.
My garden is on the far northern Calif coast at the bottom end of the Pacific North West and our winters are very wet but little frost. Summer highs are upper 60 and lows of 55 and a little colder in the winter. I am buying all new Garlic seed stock due to a bad case of the garlic rust blight that stunted bulb size this year...