(Pen) wrote:

I bought a pack of garlic in the grocery store labeled 'pearl garlic'.
It turned out to be one giant clove instead of several small cloves
in the bulb.

It sounds much like what people obsessed over garlic (mea culpa) call a
"round." If you plant one of the little bulbils that form on the stem of
topset garlic, you'll get a single undivided bulb the first season.
Usually those "flower" stalks are cut off to put all the energy into the
main bulb, but bulbils are a good way to make quick increase of a new
variety.
Digressing even further:
There's considerable discussion over whether cutting the scapes, as these
stalks are called, matters. It depends on soil fertility, moisture, the
phase of the moon, and the gardener's [love] life. In my garlic bed does
matter, to the tune of half the size bulbs.
Minor setback in spring up here, but at least it didn't snow.


Gary Woods AKA K2AHC- PGP key on request, or at www.albany.net/~gwoods
Zone 5/6 in upstate New York, 1200' elevation. NY WO G