What's wrong with my garlic

[rary]

When lifting my garlic today I have discovered that there are some cloves growing a couple of inches above the bulb, I think it was caused by the bulb starting to shoot, but what I want to know is can these cloves be eaten, or can it be used as seed? Also there are some small spawn? at the base of some elephant garlic (which unfortunately didn't grow as well as I hoped it would) but again can I sow this and if I do is it worth it

[Jay-ell]

Both the little bulb in the garlic stem and the little bulbils at the base of the elephant garlic can be planted but they won't form a head in the first year - they'll form a large round mono bulb.

I've had the bulb in the garlic stem once - I think it might be stress related. The bulbils on the bottom of the elephant garlic are normal - they'll be formed each year. They're the last reserve of the plants survival strategy and can take a couple of years before they kick into life. A lot of them can drop off when you harvest the elephant garlic and pop up in the same spot a year or two later.

You can find the elephant garlic mono bulbs marketed as "Solo Garlic" - quite big, bigger than a normal garlic clove, all one clove.