After taking about four months to barely poke a few scrawny leaves out of the ground, our ninniku (garlic) family has really sprung into life with the arrival of the balmy spring weather. Though it’s been only about a month since I took the photos of the tiny leaves I posted in Ninniku Monogatari - Part 3, the plants have more than quadrupled in size.

Also, I am very happy to report that the ninniku in my section of the patch are sprouting gloriously and have just about caught up in size to Mrs. JP’s early sprouters. My garlic plants are the ones in the small section in the foreground of the photo below.

But regardless of what the leaves look like, the main event is what is happening underground. It still remains to be seen whether the month or so difference in planting between my bulbs and Mrs. JP’s bulbs will have any effect on the size or quality of the bulbs we eventually pull up sometime in June.

And then there is the question of whether or not to cut the flowers. . . More on that later. . .