What to do with my dead garlic patch?

[T]

Hi All,

My garlic failed this year do to the hot weather. My garlic patch is full of little tiny, squishy. failed garlic bulbs.

Do I risk leaving them in place or should I dig them up so the won't complete with the new strain (to be determined) that I will plant in the fall?

Many thanks,

-T

[songbird]

always rotate plantings between different plant families if you can. this helps keep diseases and bugs from having an easy go of things and it also uses somewhat different nutrients from the same soil so you can stretch your amendments and $ further.

if you leave them alone it is likely you'll have some still alive in there, they've just died back and gone dormant.

bulb plants can somewhat adjust to arid conditions and in some places that is actually where they may do better because of less fungal diseases. to get to bigger and what most people want for edible size we pump them up with extra water and nutrients.

at the moment i have scapes on the hard neck garlic which are pretty big themselves. the bulbs should be ready now so i need to lift them soon. when i planted them the cloves i put in the ground were the largest ones and that gives them the energy for the coming season of growing roots and putting up leaves.

songbird