Advice re Garlic

I've grown Garlic for the 1st time this season. I planted the 12 separated cloves of a hard neck Garlic in big pots last Autumn and stored them in the unheated greenhouse. I read it's a good idea to harvest the bulbs about 4 weeks after the scapes appear so have done that.
I'm delighted with the results I've got. All 12 cloves have grown into hefty healthy looking bulbs and 1 even split so in fact I have 13 good sized bulbs from 12 cloves.

2 questions. When I dug up the 1st bulb it was bigger than I expected and I've slightly damaged it. Obviously it won't store as well as the undamaged ones. Should I still try to dry it off or use it fresh ?(never eaten fresh Garlic!).

I got the original bulb through a mail order company that was having a ridiculously good offer on. I don't buy much over the net normally so was wondering if it would be a good idea to keep a couple of the bulbs and use them for growing my next season's crop? I also have some soft neck garlic which aren't so far on so will have plenty for consumption and could spare a couple of bulbs. However, maybe it's recommended to get the bulbs from professional growers each year? Garlic really would appear to be an easy crop to grow. Wish this could be said of all crops as my "giant" onions are anything but atm

 

You can eat the damaged one fresh, nice and strong like that

You can save your own cloves for next year too, just don't plant them in the same bed, don't want to risk onion white rot

 

I leave until the top starts to wither before having a look what's happening below ground, but leaving too long can result in the outer bulb wrapper splitting as individual cloves break through the outer skin and these wont store so well, use for re-planting. Did all the new bulbs successfully divide into cloves? As for the double bulb, some cloves have 'chinese walls' and will grow into 2 bulbs.

 

Thanks both @Zigs and @Scrungee. Re "did all the new bulbs successfully divide into cloves". I don't know yet as only lifted the bulbs 2 days ago and leaving them to dry before attempting to split them into cloves. Would it be a good/bad idea to use the bulb that split into 2 separate bulbs as "stock" for next season? be great to think you could get loads of "twins" but maybe just because a bulb split once it doesn't necessarily mean it will always do that.

 

Might just have been growing conditions, but you never know. I usually save my biggest ones to replant and eat the little ones.

Started off with 3 blubs and got up to 5,000 before the rot got me

 

Fresh tastes better

Digged out mine two weeks ago

 

[QUOTE="Zigs, post: 1031647,
Started off with 3 blubs and got up to 5,000 before the rot got me [/QUOTE]
Good god what the ....did you do with 5000? Presume you sold/gave them away. Hope you also grew lots of Parsley to go with them Zigs otherwise I doubt you'd have had too many friends with your constant Garlic breath