Garlic scapes?

lesa

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Lets just say, I grew a little garlic this year!!! An entire row. It is now garlic scape time. I looked up recipes and found an interesting pesto recipe. Anyone have any other ideas?
 

hoodat

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Rather than go through the whole drying and storing routine I prefer to preserve mine by storing peeled cloves in either olive oil or vinegar. If you store them in olive oil just be sure to keep it in a dark cool place so the oil doesn't go "off" and give you that stale taste. The refrigerator is fine if you have room. The olive oil turns cloudy there but if you bring it back up to room temp the cloudiness goes away.
 

wifezilla

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This is my first year growing garlic too. I have elephant garlic and regular stuff. Not sure what variety. It was in my fridge and sprouted roots so I planted it. It's growing great :D
 

vfem

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what are your Garlic scapes? Is this actually the garlic? Or are you talking about those bulblets I'm still trying to figure out what they were called?
 

patandchickens

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The scape is the flower stem that grows up when the garlic is almost mature, and curls around, and at the end a flower and/or little teeny bulbils form.

I've always found them too woody to eat -- this is from hardneck garlic, dunno bout softneck -- until just today, when I noticed that the coupla bulbs that got accidentally left in the garden last year :)P) were juuuuust starting to send up scapes, only maybe 6" long yet. Picked them off, and as a diversion from weeding I stuck one in my mouth to chew. It was not woody at ALL. And very tasty :)

So I think this year I just need to catch them much earlier than I have in the past (before, I've always waited til they made a complete circle).

I have seen recipes where they are sauteed in olive oil; or suggestions to cut them fine and use like chives or scallions.

Good luck, have fun,

Pat
 

vfem

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patandchickens said:
The scape is the flower stem that grows up when the garlic is almost mature, and curls around, and at the end a flower and/or little teeny bulbils form.

I've always found them too woody to eat -- this is from hardneck garlic, dunno bout softneck -- until just today, when I noticed that the coupla bulbs that got accidentally left in the garden last year :)P) were juuuuust starting to send up scapes, only maybe 6" long yet. Picked them off, and as a diversion from weeding I stuck one in my mouth to chew. It was not woody at ALL. And very tasty :)

So I think this year I just need to catch them much earlier than I have in the past (before, I've always waited til they made a complete circle).

I have seen recipes where they are sauteed in olive oil; or suggestions to cut them fine and use like chives or scallions.

Good luck, have fun,

Pat
Ooooooooooh... I let mine totally go to flower and I have the flowers in floral arrangements in the house. They are gorgeous when in bloom! :)

Thanks for clearing that up. ;)
 

lesa

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It seems you should cut them off, so more energy goes into the bulb. The pesto was great! You don't eat the "bulb/flower" part, only the stem. Try them, they are delicious!
 

lesa

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Hey, Hunkie, I would love to see that link- but it isn't working for me....Thanks!
 

chicken stalker

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Just take the number off the end...so it ends in .com

I can't believe there are soooo many varieties of garlic....I could never choose what to order! Wow!
 

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