Garlic planting - earliest ??

What variety are you growing Kirk and are you feeding them. We've tried quite a few different types (planted Oct/Nov) and they've all done well on chicken manure pellets.

I think some varieties are for Autumn and some for spring. I planted all mine in pots in Sept/ Oct last year as there were a good crop of nettles/docks growing where I wanted to plant them next to a new polytunnel. I planted out probably Nov./early december. They all had loads of roots - but one variety was conspicuous by its absence this spring so should probably have been planted in spring. The row next to the polytunnel did particularly well with large bulbs (except the said variety) could be a couple of reasons that row did well thought - more watering/warmer micro climate. I didn't need to feed as position had not been used for several years. Only attention was to weed out the nettles/docks a couple of times as they tried to regrow ( I only turned over the area one spade deep after the nettles had died down a bit). So theres your choice, If you have a good weedy area use that or try chicken pellets and probably keep them well watered. Another point is to only use decent sized cloves. Small cloves tend to produce small bulbs. I always keep the largest bulbs for replanting.

What varieties have you tried?

The varieties are very variable even amongst the same conditions. In the same bed for me i had the following results this year

Picardy Wight - very poor. small cloves and some total failures
Iberian Wight - good - large clean cloves, no failures
Caulk Wight - Ok - medium size, no failures

One purple and one white variety - cannot recall the specific names, think the normal Wight varieties.
The 3rd cannot recall much on that at all. Just remember that the first 2 varieties sprouted easily and quickly while the whole row of the 3rd didn't show. Two or three weeks after the first two the third appeared.

All grew fairly well. Bed was fairly well manured and the soil is good. To me it seemed a little odd that all 3 varieties produced about identical sized bulbs at the end. Also noticed that the stems seemed stronger a few months back then appeared to weaken and reduce in diameter. Nothing wrong with the bulbs however.

May be better trying them in a container next time.

Really just want to know what is the earliest I can plant them, as Autumn, Winter, Spring plantings have generally resulted in poorish results. There is not a lot left.

As I understand it, though others might tell you different, the best time to plant autumn-planting garlic varieties is after you've had some frost but before the ground freezes over for the winter. Then the garlic is supposed to develop roots underground but ideally not show above ground until the worst of the winter is over. It's not good to plant it too early and have it make a lot of growth above ground before the winter really sets in. But that might be less critical in places that have milder winters than I do.

If you miss that time you can still get quite good results by planting in late winter/very early spring, as soon as the ground is workable, when you can also plant spring planting types, as long as there is still enough cold weather ahead to stimulate the bulb to split into cloves.

As others have said, bigger cloves result in bigger bulbs. They need good, well cultivated soil and plenty of feeding, and they prefer a sunny position. And start watering early if it's a dry spring - I think that's very important. They can also turn out small if you plant them too close together.