Hi friends! For context I am in Toronto Canada, gardening with whatever small amount of space and sun I've got.
In fall 2025 I planted several cloves of garlic, and in spring 2026 they sprouted as expected. By early summer the greens weren't looking great and started to die back, I suspect because the area of my garden they were in wasn't getting enough sun by the time the leaves on the trees came in.
I ended up neglecting the garlic bed and just focusing on my other plants. It is now fall 2026, and I noticed the garlic bed is sprouting again. What should I do with the sprouts? Eat the garlic greens? Leave them and harvest them before winter? I can't imagine there would be enough time for them to fully mature before the snow comes.
Sorry for what may be a silly question, this was my first attempt at growing garlic and I wasn't expecting it to re-sprout at the end of the season!
by Saria-
5 Comments
Your time to harvest was when they started to die back. Around summer. They have now produced more cloves which is what you are seeing.
So, the ones that have resprouted are going to be clumped together now and won’t grow as large. They also won’t be able to be cured to last longer.
That said, you should be able to harvest them next spring/summer and use them fresh as green garlic.
There are multiple cloves sprouting. They wont produce good bulbs that close together. I woukd suggest seperating them to movd even spacing and then harbest them as needed as green garlic (like you would green onions).
Leave your garlic there, They will die back when the cold weather comes . They will come up again in spring. You plant your garlic in the Fall and harvest in summer (July or August ), when the bottom leave start turning brown, I would pull it when 3 -4 green leave left. Good luck!
The forgotten garlic has started a new cycle.
Since you didn’t harvest bulbs in summer, now each clove in them is sprouting and getting ready to make new bulbs next year.
If you want to grow decent garlic bulbs next year, lift them up now, separate the sprouted cloves, and plant them individually, like you would plant seed garlic cloves. They will handle the transplanting just fine.