The general method of garlic growing is plant in the fall, harvest the next summer. Save your biggest bulbs for planting that fall. At planting time, you pop the cloves, and plant them individually. Then repeat following years. What you have sounds alot like my mom's elephant garlic plot I helped clean up a few years ago. It had been neglected for seveal years. A couple of the years my step-father tilled the area in teh fall when everything was dead, and covered with chopped leaves and grass clippings from the yard, hoping to smother everything. I told him all the tilling did was spread the bulbs and cloves around, and the mulching was really protecting and feeding them. The soil was awesome! Then it was just left a couple of years. So what we had were bulbs that died back in the summer/fall, and the cloves then started growing new bulbs. Not every bulb or clove survived, but I pulled some of the biggest clumps of the tiniest elephant garlic you will ever see. Plus some reasonable sized ones, and rounds, and even 2 truly sized elephant garlic bulbs. I did pick the scapes first. I ended up with 2 brown paper grocery bags full of scapes! What we did, and what my recommendation would be to you is: -- We pulled it all in the summer just as leaf die back started, maybe a bit earlier than ideal, but we wanted to clean it up. -- The small bulbs (and rounds) that were generally unusable for planting and to small or annoying to process in anyway, were composted. -- The biggest bulbs (and rounds) were kept for seed garlic. My mom kept only enough to grow the amount she wanted the next year, plus I got some. -- Everything left over was put aside for use in the kitchen and to be given away. I believe the bulbils you planted will produce what are called rounds. It looks like one clove that didn't divide. Those can be picked and dried and re-planted and they will produce a bulb the following year. Good luck.

I planted a few silene and a few stokes asters but most of them are still in the containers. I must have about 50 silene seedlings but they're under a half inch tall. They're not growing at all. The ones I planted last week look ok so I think I'll just put them in the ground somewhere and see if they start growing. My paw paw seeds never sprouted but maybe they still will. My lettuce and other greens are embarrassing. They sprouted but they're not really growing. My dad has given me a couple gallon ziplock bags of lettuce he got from his garden. Next time I'll try them in the gound instead of containers. I planted two each of five different kinds of cherry tomatoes a week or two ago and still have the rest to put out. I have sunflowers to direct sow too Bonnie. I see some sunny days in the forecast so I will try to do that this weekend sometime. Melons as well.

Glenda...the second stimulous is in the form of less $$ withheld from paychecks...people who have jobs will take home a little bit more. Since those of us who get SS have no tax $$ withheld, the "stimulus" we get is lump sum of $250. How it gets to you depends on how you get your monthly SS money. If you get a paper check, you get your $250 in the mail, a paper check. If your monthly SS is automatically deposited in a bank account, your $250 will be deposited in that account. Since these $250 "stimulus checks" are going only to those who are on SS or SSI or SSD rolls, the government is using the SS payment method to deliver it.

Kittiemom, I don't envy you the task of selling your childhood home. I didn't have to do that, but I did have to sell my parents' retirement home, where they lived for 30+ years. Not fun. Mary, what you accomplished must have given you a real boost in terms of confidence and self-esteem. I'm not suggesting you needed that, but it's what usually happens when someone develops a new skill or learns something about a previously unfamiliar field. Good work! Rob, yes, keep that up. Anxiety breeds anxiety, so it's important to fight back whenever you can. Taking that first step was probably the hardest, and as you discovered, it reaped rewards. When I was in my forties I started experiencing anxiety and became afraid to drive. I don't know what caused it (perimenopause?), but it was not a welcome turn of events! As I've often said, I'm a car person, and I love to drive. It felt so unnatural to have become a wimp about it. So I fought back, and got myself back to normal. Whew! Salgal, I can't relate at all. Which means I'm jealous. LOL Dedtired, good for you for giving it a shot. I bet you'll have a blast. A couple of years ago I found myself in a crammed, noisy singles bar (very young singles) with some of my family, including my granddaughter. She was the right age to fit in; I most certainly was not. But we all did a little chatting/bantering with the young clientele and had fun. With your guitarist to listen to, you'll have even more fun! (I'm guessing it's not Willie Nelson because he's 81.) :-)