garlic

Yesterday I noticed the tops of my garlic plants were all mostly brown and that there were these odd growths on the stems of some of the plants. I thought at first they might be flowering, but the growths were not at the top of the stalks, and are hard about the size of chickpeas. The are purplish white and smell and have the texture of tiny, spherical garlic cloves I planted- so maybe they are new sprouting cloves?

I don't know, but I decided to harvest the plants today. When I planted my garlic last fall, I had visions of harvesting a crop of huge perfect looking garlics and braiding them into a beautiful rope that would be both useful and decorative. Most of them are decently sized, a few are tiny and none are huge. And it turns out braiding them isn't so hard, unless you care what the braid looks like in the end. They haven't dried/cured yet, so the bulbs are still fresh with dirt, but this isn't what I pictured! Alas. I guess now the question is whether we eat this crop, or I save it for replanting in the fall..