This year, for the first time, we've been growing garlic in our vegetable patch. We've been eagerly anticipating the results, but recently we learned about a bonus you get with growing garlic - namely, garlic scapes.
What are scapes, you might ask? Well, garlic plants don't actually flower. But that doesn't stop them putting forth a long, curled shoot from the top of the plant's stalk, ending in a seed pod, or bulbil. This shoot is the garlic scape. Conventional wisdom is that in order to maximize the plant's energy in growing your garlic bulbs as big and strong as possible, you want to break or cut off these scapes shortly after they appear. The good news is, the scapes themselves are edible, with a delicate flavor somewhere between that of chives and true garlic.
I've been doing some research on what to do with my garlic scapes, and have come up with a host of options, from stir-frying them like onions to making soup to (what sounds most exciting) making pesto. Last night, I took a couple of them, chopped them finely and mixed them with some asparagus, salt and pepper, and lemon juice, then grilled them in foil packets with salmon filets. The flavor was subtle but very pleasant.
I'll be investigating - and publishing - more about the apparently versatile garlic scape this week as I learn more about its capabilities. Watch this (or a similar) space!
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Comments: 27
B.F., they are very tasty if last night's experiment was anything to go by. I think I want to try the garlic-scape pesto idea next.
I swore I was going to try growing garlic and onions in the garden this year. I have several varieties of onion, but didn't do the garlic.
I don't suppose you can propagate a plant from a clove?
And propagating plants from cloves is actually precisely how you do it. Get a head of garlic, break it into cloves, and plant them about 4-6 inches deep and about 6-8 inches apart.
We bought our seed garlic from The Garlic Store, an online resource for all things garlic, but you could do it with the three-for-a-dollar heads from the grocery store too.
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We pulled up a couple of the bulbs of our Czech Bzenc garlic to check its progress, and it was disappointingly small. Do you have any insight into why the garlic might not be developing?
Garlic has medicinal properties in it also. Good for common
colds make garlic soup using a bunch of garlic put through
a garlic press then boil it up in chicken broth. I used to eat
garlic sandwiches too they are great tasting. Whe you get
an ear ache peel a garlic clove and nestle it in your ear when
you start to taste the garlic the ear ache is gone.
You're right about the medicinal properties - I've alway attributed my lack of common ailments to my regular intake of garlic and chile peppers - or is it just that eating those keeps most people away from me? ;-)
Either way, I seem to end up healthier than most of the people I know.