Sorry for not answering you, Sandy. I have just returned from a 7 day fishing trip in Alaska.
The general rule of thumb is to wait until the lower half of the leaves have turned brown. But when I dig my hardneck garlic up (usually a couple of weeks before the softneck and Creole), I begin carefully digging around a few of the softneck and Creole bulbs (with my hands) and check to see that the capsules are still intact. I will repeat that every week. If I see cloves beginning to poke though, I will go ahead and dig up the bulbs, regardless of what the tops look like. Unfortunately, you probably will never be able to tell "maximum" size of the bulbs, since each variety has a different size bulb and the size will vary even within the same variety. I have found that planting the larger cloves will produce the larger bulbs and vice versa. At least that seems to be the case.
Thanks, Glen. That's about what I thought.
