I’m afraid I don’t know any way to keep garlic from sprouting between now and fall planting time. Don’t know where you are, how cold, wet, etc. it is there, but your best bet is to plant them as soon as the ground can be worked, in well-drained soil so they don’t rot. They don’t mind cold; no worries about light freezes, but if it looks like it will go below 28 or so a loose temporary covering of straw mulch would be a good idea. By late summer, they will have formed small bulbs. Harvest those bulbs as described in the post, then save out the largest cloves and plant those.

Good question!

You can leave them in the soil, mulched as described, and see what you get- they’ll almost certainly survive and divide. But they’re likely to form small bulbs with small cloves, so if I were you I’d plant some big new cloves now, just for insurance.

Storage is the same regardless of when you plan to use the garlic – in pesto in August, for planting in October or roasted with potatoes in the dead of winter.

There are just 2 rules to keep in mind:

1. Eat the bulbs that look like they won’t store well first. There are always a few that split or have one not-good looking clove or otherwise clearly signal they’re less than perfectly sound.

2. Plant only the very best. It’s tempting to set aside smaller or damaged bulbs as better for planting than eating, but that’s what makes planting stock “run out.” If you plant your very best each year, your private garlic variety will improve over time.