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| The Pre-Garlic Delicacy Known as a Garlic Scape |
Last summer, my husband Doug and I purchased some garlic while visiting a country home during the Hamilton Spectator Open Garden Week tours. It was healthy, organically grown, and delicious; and, the $20 bouquet kept us well stocked over the winter.
Following careful research late last autumn, I decided to try growing garlic myself in our pollinator potager; and, I used a head of the organic garlic as seed stock. I prepared 12" deep planting holes of loose loamy soil before inserting 7 garlic cloves, one in each hole. Then, I covered them with leaf mulch to insulate the garlic over the winter, and crossed my fingers.
This spring, before the snow was barely off the ground, up popped plant-lets I knew in my bones were the garlic I had sowed in early November; and, I was delighted. Apparently, I'd become a garlic farmer!
In early summer, I was amazed by the appearance of garlic scapes that rose and circled above the garlic stems; and, which I picked before they had a chance to flower. Garlic scapes, the pre-garlic delicacy that can be used as favouring before the actual garlic cloves are ready, are the bonus that you don't receive when you purchase your garlic at the grocery store.
I harvested my own organically grown garlic in mid summer, when the stems were just beginning to yellow and wilt. The heads were a little smaller than the organic stock we bought in the country; but, the cloves were tasty and stored well for future use.
In addition to garlic's beautiful graceful presence in the garden and its seemingly pest resistant quality (I had very little rabbit damage this year), by growing my own garlic I learned it's a plant that keeps on giving: Specifically, from just one head of seven cloves of garlic, I was able to grow seven more heads of garlic – a pretty good yield for any crop.
Inspired and motivated by the prolific nature of Allium sativum, I’m getting ready to plant more garlic for harvest again next summer. I recommend that everyone attempt the growing of at least one clove of garlic, somewhere in your garden. I suspect you’ll be pleasantly surprised.
