Tag: Garlic

Garlic Scapes

Did you know garlic plants provide much more than just the part that is commonly available in grocery stores? It’s true. There is more to this fragrant plant than what comes in the papery bulb.

What Are Garlic Scapes?

Garlic scapes are the tender end of the shoot in hard neck garlic varieties. As the plant grows in springtime, it sends up a shoot that is tender at first and later turns into a flower with bulbils. Those tiny bits of the flower are also edible, but the scape is the newly forming flower with it’s white end and the first 5-6 inches of tender shoot. 

When To Harvest.

When the shoot has a whitish end that looks like a bloom is starting to form, the scape is ready. The green part may be curled back on itself forming a curly que at the very top of the garlic plant. Snap off the shoot approximately 4-6 inches below the tip just as you would asparagus. The plant will snap off at it’s tender point. 

How To Use.

Now that you have these spring delicacies, it’s time to use them in the kitchen. Scapes taste like garlic. The flavor is lighter than garlic cloves but still clearly garlic. One option is to dice and stir into any dish where you would normally use garlic. Scapes may be sautéed as is and eaten as a vegetable. You can chop it for a garnish on lettuce salad, use to flavor pasta salad, fry with potatoes or use in any dish where garlic will add a complementary flavor.

As an added bonus, snapping off the scapes will divert the plant’s energy into bulb development. So not only does the gardener get a fresh taste of garlic in the spring, the fall harvest will be improved.

If you grow your own garlic, give scapes a try. If you don’t and are in the Charleston area, stop by the 18th Street Farmer’s Market this Saturday and pick up some from us.

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022-Market Food

Do you ever wonder what to do with all of that delicious food you find at the Farmer’s Market? Today we describe one meal we had featuring the same things we took to the Market, plus how to harvest and store garlic.

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Planting Garlic

Did that last post make your mouth water? Are you craving some creamy roasted garlic spread on tender slices of Italian style bread? Perhaps a side of simple pasta with a browned butter sauce topped with grated Mizithra cheese?

I can tell you from experience that roasting garlic grown a few yards from your kitchen adds an additional layer of satisfaction.

Garlic is planted in the fall and overwinters in the ground. Since the time to plant in Central Illinois is late September/early October, get your order for seed garlic in now. We order from Seed Savers Exchange in Decorah, IA. This company is a non-profit charged with preserving seed that otherwise may be lost over time.

Bed Preparation

Prepare your garlic bed now. Choose a different location each year for garlic, using good crop rotation principles to reduce disease and improve soil health. Here at Five Feline Farm, garlic will be planted where spring lettuce was grown. The excess lettuce has been allowed to sit on the soil. About a week or so before planting, the bed will be turned with a broadfork. (More to come on this technique in a future post.)  Garlic is a heavy feeder so adding in compost and Epsom salt will increase your harvest.

When it is time to plant, carefully remove the outer papery layers until the individual cloves can be separated. Don’t remove the papery layer from the individual cloves. Plant each clove about 3 inches deep and 6-8 inches apart with the pointed end upright. 

When the weather turns cold, mulch heavily with clean straw. In the spring when the days have warmed to 60 degrees and the night temperatures stay above 40 degrees, you can pull back the straw and keep the bed evenly watered until ready to harvest. You may leave the straw to help keep down weeds but there is a risk that it will stay wet and develop mold. Like most things in gardening, there is a trade off: do more weeding or accept the risks of mold. Decide for yourself how you want to manage your garlic bed.

Our next post will contain ideas about how to use this delicious fruit of your labor. While you are waiting on that post to arrive, check out our Facebook page, Instagram and Twitter feed. Plus, if you haven’t already signed up for our email list, please do. Each post will automatically show up in your email plus an occasional bonus for subscribers only.

Planning To Plant Garlic

Walk into any decent Italian restaurant and take a deep breath. That warm spicy aroma tingling your nose is quite likely garlic. That incomparable deep flavor that makes Italian dishes sing.

You can bring this into your own kitchen through bulbs of garlic purchased at a box store, but why do that when garlic is so easy to grow?

Garlic braid

Now is the time to start planning for your fall planting of garlic. Yes, it is somewhat counter-intuitive, but some plants are designed to spend their winter nestled in the cold earth. Garlic is just such a plant.

There are two basic types of garlic and numbers of varieties within those types. Like any other plant, the specific varieties have different advantages of flavor, storage, etc.

Hard Neck Garlic

These bulbs of garlic are different from the kind you normally find available in the store. The bulb forms a hard center stem that grows up through the bulb to support the leaves. As the bulb is opened, there are typically 6 or 8 cloves of garlic around this center stem. The cloves are full and large. Varieties we grow are: Music, Bogatyr, and German Red.

Soft Neck

This garlic does not form that hard center stem. Softer leaves shoot out of the middle and many cloves form around this center. The outer cloves are reasonably sized with size decreasing as you near the center. Even the outer cloves do not attain the size of the hard neck ones. We grow Inchelium Red

After you receive your garlic bulbs, either through a mail order supplier or somewhere local, don’t peel off the outer papery cover until you are ready to plant. Store the bulbs in a cool, dry place until ready to plant.

At this point you should also plan where you will plant your garlic. Choose a sunny location that is well drained with rich soil.  You will need 6-8 inches of space per plant.

This post is the first in a series about home grown garlic. Our next post will cover the characteristics of the garlic varieties we grow. In the meantime, check out this post about how to use garlic bulbils.

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