I walked out the door on one of the hottest days of the summer so far. They said it was in the mid-nineties. That’s hot. Once I realize that I really won’t melt, I refocus my attention to the garden. For the garden the heat means that the plants are maturing fast. In this instance, its the garlic scapes. They were shooting up their seed heads and curling into loops a couple of days ago. Now they are already starting to straighten out and stretch their heads up to the sun. For the final garlic to form larger cloves underground, the flower head that is going to stretch to the sky needs to get picked off. That way the energy of the plant moves its focus to the cloves of garlic (roots) under the ground to produce larger ones instead of putting its energy into producing bulbils (seeds).
It is fun to let one or two of garlic bloom and produce bulbils. If you spread these bulbils out and replant late in the fall, you will have first year garlic next year. They will produce full size garlic heads in 3-4 years, that is if you trim off the scape every June.
So now that the scapes have been trimmed off the plant, what to do with them. So begins the scape challenge. Here are a few things that I have done:
1 Chop and eat raw – they taste like fresh garlic.
2 Mince and cook with them. They can be added to anything!
3 Coat with oil and grill. They become sweet and is a nice addition to a meal.
4 Chop and freeze for fresh scapes all year long.
5 Finely chop and dehydrate. Great to add to casseroles and soups throughout the year.
6 Pickle them. They are delicious.
7 Pesto, I have not mastered Pesto yet, but maybe this year.
What do you do with your scapes?
