Garlic 2021-22

When I dug up my Elephant garlic about a month ago there was some small offshoots connected to the main corm. I planted these up in a pot and after a furtle today found there esd no growth from them, in fact a couple had rotted. I took them all back out of the compost and was concerned they had formed a hard 'shell' around them. No shoots or roots would be able to penetrate this shell so I carefully broke the shell off the remaining ones and re-planted them on the surface so I could keep an eye on them. The compost was kept moist and I can only liken the shell to that of a nut?
I tried to propagate from these growths last year without success so hopefully I will get something this year.

I re-planted some of the split up Elephant Garlic cloves soon after lifting and these are now showing above soil level which is good.