Pictures of the garlic in the winter

It is now officially winter and the garlic still appears to be growing, but one thing I noticed with the ones that are barely in the ground is that the cloves are all getting rounder, turning into rounds likely in response to the cooler soil temperature as vernalization occurs. I believe that by March, they should all be completely rounded as they are prepared to release all the energy they have saved up. These guys are also a bit larger than the cloves that were planted, but they make their real gains in the spring when they fully mature into bulbs.

Here's one of them showing the top part of the garlic showing how rounded it is becoming in December.

I sprouted these indoors 2 weeks ago and I'm putting them out in the cold for a few weeks to bring back indoors to see if they can still form bulbs with a shortened dormancy period.

These bulbils from 2010 scapes are close to full sized plants now so I'm bringing them indoors to see if they form full bulbs with light from a south facing window.

Here are bulbils from the same batch and they seem to grow best in a pot with fertilizer.

I happened to plant all my other garlic species later in the year so this is all the same kind, but I believe my results should still be alright because they still root out in the fall and get a head start as well as vernalization which is important for bulb formation. It seems like they need to go through the cold weather and the whole winter to put on sizable bulbs. The garlic leaves will not die back, but they will be crushed to the ground by the snow, but when they bounce back up in the spring, the stems will come out much fatter as the roots will already be well developed to finish the growth cycle.

Here's just a random photo of a grass plant turning red from the cold. I thought it was garlic for a moment.