What to do with Garlic Scapes

This is our first year to grow a large planting of hard neck garlic (about 12 lbs worth). We plan to harvest all this garlic and replant it all to expand our supply. In the name of increased productivity, the garlic scapes (flower bulb) had to be cut off yesterday to prevent them zapping the bulbs. Virtually all of our garlic had produced scapes by the time we cut them (Music, Chesnock Red, and Inchillium Red). I honestly would like to see them bloom, but tough luck. Note: soft neck garlic, like you normally buy at the grocery store, doesn't normally make a flower bulb and basically is a clone. This flower allows the hard neck to cross pollinate and produce hybrid offspring from the seed garlic made within the flower bulb. Garlic scapes are sort of like eating the chives from onions + mild garlic flavor.

Garlic scapes on hard neck garlic

About a year ago, we travelled to Asheville, NC and stopped at a farmers co-op and had a breakfast biscuit. That was the most heavenly biscuit I ever ate. I have a thing about good biscuits, and this was one the best. Little did I know they'd put garlic scapes in it. I didn't even know what a garlic scape was before then, but I was bound and determined duplicate that biscuit (which has resulted in coutless failed attempts). If I ever do properly duplicate it, I promise to post a recipe.

Garlic Scape Cheddar Biscuits

Anyhow, now I have 2.5 lbs of scapes grown from 12 lbs of garlic (lots of scapes right?), so did my research on what I can do with all these rascals.

STORAGE OPTIONS:

• Fresh: Store fresh in a flower vase for looks until you're ready to eat (might not want to store them this way for too long though)
• Refrigerate: Store fresh in fridge for about a month.
• Freeze: Food process or just blanche then freeze. Note: I like to make it into an pesto and then freeze it. It's very garlicky but not so much so that you can't enjoy it. Honestly, I still like traditional basil pesto better, but it is still really good, particularly if you're looking for creative uses for it b/c of the quantity you have (see recipe below).
• Pickle: Can them in vinegar brine like you would cucumbers
• Dehydrate: Food process, or finely dice then dehydrate to make a garlic spice. Mortar and pestle or crumble in hands afterwords to get a finer consistency. If you make it very fine, you can make a blend (salt, dried garlic spice, etc..) otherwise it will be more of a chive spice consistency
• Maybe others, who knows'

VARIOUS USES:

Garlic Scape Pesto
~1 cup grated Parmesan or Tallegio cheese
~1-2 fresh lime/lemon juice + zest (or about 3 Tbsp)
~1/2 lb. garlic scapes - originally I weighed out a pound's worth but my giant food processor started filling up at what I'd estimate was half of that. And I quickly realized that was PLENTY of pesto. So I mostly just size it by the size it takes to fill up my food processor before processing. Chop it up and it goes down to about the half-way mark. Then add cheese, nuts, peas, and salt. Blend. Then add oil and blend (thus all the approximate marks).
~1/2 cup olive oil (however much it takes to get the consistency right)
~1 cup of toasted pine nuts, almonds, pecans, or walnuts- I prefer pine nuts but they are pricey. Once my pecan trees start making nuts, I'll probably just start using that in most recipes calling for nuts.
~1 cup of steamed English peas - this just dilutes the garlic-ness a bit and also gives it a good consistency. Can't really taste the peas.
~1/4 cup of fresh basil (if you have it, if not, no biggie) - when I made mine, I had garlic scapes but only tiny basil plants, so I went and nipped a few to add in
Salt to taste


Note: If you plant to eat it soon, just put it in a tall jar and top off with olive oil, then put a top on it to prevent oxidation. Or you can freeze it but be sure to get rid of all the air in the ziplock bag. Previously frozen pesto has a milder garlic taste. Can serve over toasted bruschetta or pasta with a side of grilled red bell pepper and/or steamed broccoli

Garlic Scape Pesto

Scapes as a Substitute for Garlic
Use them like garlic, as an aromatic in a wide variety of recipes. Scapes lose a lot of their bite when sautéed, more so than garlic cloves, so use at least three or four times as much scape-age as you would clove-age.



Scapes In Stir Fry
Scapes are popular in Asian dishes anyhow. Use in place of scallions or chives. Really you can use them in place of scallions or chives in any recipe, just about.

Asian Stir Fry with Garlic Scapes

Grilled Scapes as a Substute for Asparagus
Another great, and very different, way to showcase scapes is to grill them, tossed with a little olive oil, salt, and pepper, over direct heat for about two minutes. Flip them once, halfway through, and finish with an extra sprinkle of flaky salt and maybe a bit of lemon juice and zest. They'll be charred in spots and just soft enough, and their flavor will have sweetened and mellowed dramatically. Grilled scapes are surprisingly reminiscent of asparagus, and surprisingly different from raw scapes.

Grilled Scapes - Served Like Asparagus

Roasted Garlic Scapes
Take the scapes and put them in a lightly oiled roasting pan, top with salt (kosher or sea salt works best). Put the loaded and covered pan in a hot (425°F) oven for 30 to 45 minutes or until they are beginning to turn brown. serve as a side or main dish. Tastes like roasted garlic but creamier. This is also good drizzled with a light cheese sauce.



Sauted Scapes
Just tonight I boiled then sauted fresh beets in balsamic then tossed in some diced scallions at the last second. I usually just leave it with beets and balsamic but the scapes were a great mild garlic addition.



Scape Quiche
Or could just as easily just include them in an omlet

Garlic Scape Quiche

Garlic Scape Mashed Potatoes
Only add a little, then taste. This stuff's weird how you sometimes need a lot to equal a garlic clove and other times not. So best to add too little than too much.

In Flower Arrangement
Weird but cool, plus they're pretty to look at up until you EAT them.

Garlic Scape Flower Arrangement

Or let let them bloom

Garlic Flowers

Garlic Scape Vinegar
1 cup of white or rice vinegar with 1-2 fresh bruised green scapes. Let infuse 10 days for max flavor. Can replace scapes to keep pretty green color going. This could just as easily end being pickled scapes as well. Just cram more scapes in. Then you're primary eating the scapes vs the flavored vinegar.

Garlic Scape Flavored Vinegar

Garlic Overview + July Farm Activity

It's blueberry harvest time. We sprinkled some organic cotton seed meal for nitrogen slow release fertilizer on the blueberries while we harvested. Was a pitifully small harvest. The bushes are still tiny and they don't really look all that great right now either. Hopefully the fertilizer will spruce things up a bit. We're about to bush hog the property then we'll have a fresh load of hay to sprinkle around all the plants as well.

Although it's pretty late into summer, we planted some sprouted zinnias. Not sure if they'll have time to bloom and go back to seed again, but hopefully so. I'm hoping to establish a nice reseeding zinnia bed. The seed packs were on sale for 10 cents so bought 15 and gave it shot.

Got 5 Kiowa blackberry plants put in the ground, tied to 2 strand trellis fence, and hooked up to 1 gph drippers ($9 per plant).

Bought 3 new types of garlic ($12 / lb):

• Georgian Fire (Porcelian hardneck). Some claim it to be among the hottest of garlics. Averages 5-8 cloves per bulb. Really looking forward to trying this one.
• Siberian (Marbled purple stripe hard-neck). Originally from fishermen trading green leafy vegetables with poor peasants who grew root crops. Averages 5-9 plump cloves per bulb. Good mild flavor. Can make a very large bulb. Siberian is reported to have the highest concentration of allicin compared to other garlic varieties (in general, hardneck garlics have 3x more allicin than softnecks)
• Inchelium Red (Artichoke softneck). Large bulbed vigorous strain with 4-5 layers of cloves (8-20 total cloves). Won top rated soft-neck in 1990 Rodale kitchen taste test. Was discovered on the Colville Indian Reservation in Inchelium, Washington. Mild lingering flavor with a tingle.  This is one we tried last year and it didn't do squat for us, but it's supposed to do well in our area and want to give it one more shot.

Other varieties we already had:

• Chesnok Red  (Purple stripe hardneck)  This one grew best for us last season of about 8 different varieties tried).  It’s said that this is one of the best cooking garlics.  It is very flavorful, having won “best baking garlic” taste tests conducted by Rodale, Sunset Magazine, Martha Stewart and others. It holds its shape and retains flavor well when cooked.  It has large easy to peel cloves.  Originally from Shvelisi, Republic of Georgia.  Averages about 8 cloves per bulb with a fairly large bulb. Can handle some neglect (boo-ya).
• Mother of Pearl (Silverskin softneck). Excellent keeping qualities. Pearly pink/purple blush in heads. Spicy for a softneck. A rare garlic. Didn't grow all that well for us in Alabama but it hung in there so we're going to keep trying with this puppy.
• Martin's Heirloom  (Rocombole). Originated from the garlic farmer, Martin (who else?). It’s been grown in Wisconsin since the early 1980’s and the original source is unknown.  It doesn't grow all that great down in Alabama but holds on. In Wisconsin it's claimed to be a huge and beautiful garlic. Averages about 10 cloves.

Other Varieties we tried but that failed entirely (bummer). 

In the garlics favor, we didn't do everything we could to help the garlic. Although we did treat the garlic before planting and did add alfalfa pellets to the soil at the time of planting (although probably not enough), we never fertilized again, we didn't do a good job of deweeding at all (and there were really weeds everywhere) and it was a very, very wet winter and spring:

• Simonetti (artichoke softneck). Bulb size is supposed to be large with good flavor. Up to 20 cloves. a standard Artichoke that is very mild, very white and very large. If you want large, mild garlics, this is one to try. It usually does well, but some years it doesn’t, especially if there is a very early, very hot spring/summer.
• Inchelium Red (see description above)
• Red Toch (artichoke softneck). Originates from Tochliavri, Republic of Georgia. Averages 7 cloves per bulb.
• Purple Glazer (purple stripe hardneck). Supposedly this one really doesn't like competition from weeds (aha, this was probably our problem). Very good flavor. Originally known as Mchadidzhvari #1 from Republic of Georgia. Averages 10 cloves per bulb.

Varieties We Want to Try

• Metechi (Marbled purple stripe). Big, strong and robust. Harvests in the middle-late part of the harvest season
• Burgundy (Creole silverskin). Deep purple, uniform cloves, delightfully mid-mild taste in a bulb that grows well and stores long. Very hardy and harvests in mid-late season. Ajo Rojo is another Creole similar to Burgundy except that its color is more red than purple and a little stronger. Creole Red is a medium Creole but has only about five cloves per bulb, but they are larger cloves.
• Music (porcelain hardneck) Good flavor, sweet & pungent, very hot raw. Italian variety brought to Canada by Al Music in 80's. Averages 5 huge cloves per bulb and very hardy.
• Romanian Red
• Georgian Crystal
• Thermadrone
• Asian Tempest
• Bogadyr
• Red Rezan

Here's a decent writeup on garlic growing in warmer climates. I have definitely noticed plants described one way up north grow COMPLETELY different here and since there's hardly any garlic farmers in the south, it's sort of a roll of the dice as to what you'll end up with.

http://www.gourmetgarlicgardens.com/wwinter.htm

Online Garlic Southern Growers:
Virginia (Central): http://www.southernexposure.com
Kentucky: http://www.saltrivergarlic.com
Texas: www.gourmetgarlicgardens.com
?: http://greyduckgarlic.com/Buy_Organic_Garlic.html

Harvested Gourmet Garlic

It was garlic harvest time this week. It was a warm winter and cool summer so pests and weeds were a plenty and we didn't do a great job de-weeding or fertilizing and our soil's very acidic, so we didn't really set ourselves up for success, but all in all it wasn't so bad. We harvested all the garlic varieties at once (I know you're not supposed to do that) and layed them out on screens (from old windows) to dry. The soil was wet when we dug it up (I know you're not supposed to do that either), but it's been raining cats and dogs for weeks and almost all the green leaves were brown so figured it was now or never. We had to dry the garlic indoors. Little strange having garlic drying all over the apartment. Anyhow, you dry the garlic with the stalks still in place (I think this draws the moisture out of the center of the cloves a little better). You can tell when the garlic's dry enough b/c the green in the stalk is now totally yellow and dry. Once fully dried, you cut off the stalks and roots & brush off any dirt (unless it's softneck garlic in which case you can braid it if you want). If you didn't let your garlic go too long in the soil, you should have plenty of dry skin and can pull off a layer to clean up the garlic a bit.

We started last fall with 2 lbs of Chesnok Red and a 1 lb mix of  Inchellium Red, Red Toch, Simonetti, Mother of Pearl, Purple Glazer, & Martin's Heirloom. The Chesnok Red seemed to have done the best (biggest cloves, weight increased the most, was still the greenest at harvest time).

When we planted the garlic, we put name tags in the ground but for some reason the rain washed away what we wrote (although we used Sharpies). We remembered where we planted the Martin's Heirloom, Mother of Pearl and Chesnok Red, but not the rest.

Upon digging up the garlic (carelessly) we damaged quite a few cloves. On the bright side, that meant we got to eat them! (the plan was to harvest all the garlic and replant it all to grow our supply). We gave away about a pound of it (to very helpful and kind neighbors).

Anyhow, here are the results:
--0.23 lbs Mother of Pearl
--0.09 lbs Unknown Red/Purple Garlic
--5.31 lbs Chesnok Red
--0.18 lbs Martin's Heirloom

So despite not knowing what the 0.09 lbs of unknown purple / red garlic is, it didn't do all the well anyhow considering we planted Inchellium Red, Red Toch, Simonetti, & Purple Glazer (the rest is accounted for).

Anyhow, the harvested and cut and dried garlic is all bagged up in brown paper bags being stored in a cool dry location until replanting time during the Autumnal Equinox (Sunday, Sept 22).

Gourmet Heirloom Garlic

The gourmet garlic we ordered from Salt River Garlic in Kentucky arrived today. Never tried gourmet heirloom garlic before, so looking forward to giving this stuff a try.

Our Purchase:
2 lb Chesnok Red
1 lb Sampler: Inchilium Red, Red Toch, Simonetti, Mother of Pearl, Purple Glazer, and Martin Heirloom.

The sampler came with 6 varieties, each with 1-3 full garlic bulbs (various sizes and clove counts). The 2 lb bag had about 20 bulbs. A little pricey at $18/lb, but that seems to be the going rate just about everywhere, online. Hopefully we can turn around and sell it ourselves, down the road.

See below for a description of each type garlic we bought:

• Chesnok Red: Purple stripe hardneck, medium to extra large bulb, large cloves with reddish color on outer husk, wheat-sized bulbils, become sweet when baked, great for roasting, 9-10 cloves / bulb, good disease resistance, Salt River Garlic's favorite, rare
• Inchelium Red: Softneck artichoke, originally found on a Colville, Washington reservation, won the best tasting softneck garlic award from the Rodale Institute, produces a range of bulb sizes, flat-shaped bulbs with splashes of purple on the wrappers, contains 9-16 cloves per bulb, stores about 7 months
• Red Toch/Tochliavri: German softneck artichoke. Not too hot nor too mild but with a spicy bite. 12–18 cloves per bulb.
• Simonetti: Mild softneck artichoke originating from the Repulic of Georgia. Large bulb size, and flavor is very nice, even raw. 12-20 cloves.
• Mother of Pearl: Softneck culinary silverskin garlic. Tend to be smaller but stronger flavored than store bought.
• Purple Glazer: Similar to red toch, in flavor. Wheat-sized bulbils. Good for roasting or eating raw. Very sweet.
• Martin Heirloom: Hardneck culinary garlic. Tends to be smaller but stronger flavored than store bought. A very large topsetter with large bulbils. Here's the story on Martin's Heirloom as listed on forums.gardenweb.com:

I first bought it in 1982 or 1983 from Jung's Seed Co. It was the first and last time that I saw it. It was simply listed as "Topset Garlic", or something similar, and sold only as bulbils. Upon getting them home and reading the planting instructions, they were to be planted 4 to 5 inches deep. Whoops, that can't be right! I contacted Jung's to point out the error and it was due to failure to convert metric to English. It was supposed to be 4cm to 5cm! Therefore, anyone who bought a packet, and planted according to instructions, got nothing in return.

Now forward 20+ years and I've been growing it ever since. Thus far, nobody can find out what it originally was named or if it were merely a local landrace from somewhere. Information on where Jung's obtained it went up in smoke several years ago. Thus it's sort of a mystery as well.

It's a hardneck variety, possibly a German porcelain type, and with rather large bulbils. An old Bavarian friend told me that they used to use those large bulbils in cooking and making stock. Those bulbils will produce normal divided bulbs in a single season, and that's how we planted them for many years. Some years, we got a lot of small bulbs and other years had larger ones and always from bulbils. In recent years, we began planting back cloves instead and got really big bulbs. (Go back and read other threads about growing and harvest results for it.)

Overall, it's unlike any other garlic that I've grown. 

Martin

Good garlic webiste: http://www.filareefarm.com/