That's unfortunate about your garlic. I have actually had a few people tell me this year their Garlic did not do well either. I will keep the trimming in mind in the future, I actually did not know that. Probably what happened to my friend as well.

I fell you on the weeding, what I did last year was throw some ply wood in a few spots. It seemed to work well, the only issue I had was it seemed like the gophers really liked the cover and made a home under neath!