Garlic scapes drooping during a cold winter without much snow. Will they survive?

Question

I live in Massachusetts Zone 6b and I planted garlic in October (First time ever planting garlic!) about 6 inches deep into the soil, with mulch on top of the soil.

The garlic I planted was organic garlic I bought from whole foods.

Since the first part of the winter was relatively mild, I harvested some Scapes for thanksgiving and even had the possibility of a Christmas Day Harvest.

However, It's gotten cold here the past few weeks and there has been very little snow, none of which remained.

Today, I noticed that the scapes were drooping - though still green. Will they still be able to produce anything for the spring?

Answer 1

Yes, cold paired with no snow cover is hard on top growth, but garlic cloves will survive the winter in zone 6b (where I am also, incidentally). In my area, it's common for the top growth to die back completely during winter, and come back in the spring.

Answer 2

You've planted VERY deep and quite early. To the West in zone 4 I popped mine in just before Thanksgiving this year (I think...) and I've done them in December some years. Actually getting scapes in the fall is somewhat unusual, but given an early planting in a milder zone, I guess you can, cause you did. I'm dubious that it's a good thing that you did, though, since scapes are usually seen 4-8 weeks to harvest (and the tops dying back.) Then again, your cloves may just start all over again in spring, and I've had decent harvests from "2-year garlic" at times.

Garlics suited to the climate generally laugh off the cold - whether what you got from whole foods (likely grown in California unless labeled with a more local origin) will be happy in Massachusetts remains to be seen.

The 6" planting depth will on the one hand help with cold survival of the bulb, and on the other will probably hurt your yield, IME. I also used to plant way too deep (about 4") and have now settled on "roughly twice the clove length" as more suitable from both research and experience, though opinions do vary.