My daughter bought some little mesh bags of garlic at the markets a while ago and gave me a few. I’ll have to say it was more garlic than even we were likely to use before it went off, but ..it didn’t rot or at least most of it didn’t.
Quite a bit of it put out little shoots, so I did what the KitchenGardenInternational video http://www.youtube.com/user/kitchengardeners?feature=watch said and just kept the biggest of the cloves for planting, and put them in the garden pointy end up, about 2cm into the soil. This was about 2 weeks ago.
A couple of days ago I noticed little shoots in the spot where I planted the cloves and I have lovely little garlic plants coming along beautifully. There is a new one or two every day and the remaining garlic on the bench in the kitchen is still shooting. It’s a case of one for the pot, one for the garden at the moment so I am hoping for a great crop of garlic next year.
Garden Path Food 
Ooh I have a fair bit of shooty garlic at the moment and some pot space, do you think this will work on my balcony?
I can’t see why not but you will need to make sure that there is room around and below them for expansion as the cloves grow. I’d also try for a slightly loose soil.
‘Carrots love tomatoes’ by Louise Riotte, Gardenway Books, 1981, suggests garlic is good planted with tomatoes to protect them against red spider, but not to plant them with peas or beans as it will inhibit their growth.