a garlic query

[Primrose]

I planted some garlic cloves last year. One row of them never really took off, died back & disappeared. However, they now seem to be sprouting back to life and I wonder whether this is actually a bolting process or whether, if I leave them to maturity, I will actually get any new bulbs from them. Not seriously grown garlic before so not quite sure what to expect of them.

[FelixLeiter]

Some varieties of garlic will quite naturally "bolt". Bolting in this sense is not really bolting at all, which implies a spoiling of the crop, but a natural propensity to flower. Garlic varieties are either hard-neck (flowering) or soft-neck (not flowering). Whether they flower or not has no bearing on yield or quality. As a general rule, hard-neck varieties are hardiest and better for autumn planting, soft-neck for late winter / spring planting. But it is a general rule, and there are exceptions. Garlic which has been blackened by the weather is evidently not entirely suitable for overwintering, but it doesn't mean it will fail. And it doesn't indicate that it may not do well through another winter — this winter seems to have been more challenging than very many previously.