I’ve begun to harvest this year’s garlic crop, starting with the Juan de Fuca Wonder from Blythe Barbo and her Barbolian Fields garlic: great big heads, almost the size of apples. And the shot above shows what they looked like above ground. These are scapes, the wondrous stalks that garlic sends up as it grows. I think they are sort of otherworldly and fascinating as they bend and curl. Eventually they straighten and face skyward. Scapes can be sautéed and can be used as flavoring. They have a mild garlic flavor.
This is what they look like if they start to “bloom.” There are tiny bulblets inside that can be cultivated like seed to grow more garlic, though it’s faster to plant cloves from a head.
It remains to be seen how my garlic does as it dries. We had a rainstorm that thoroughly wetted the ground right around the time I intended to harvest – not good. I waited for the ground to dry out. . . I’m not sure if it was quite dry enough. We’ll see.