Garlic Scapes: Eat Them Now to Reduce Foreign Food Dependence--and Because They Are Delicious

Garlic scapes appear in gardens and farmers markets in mid-June. These curling, prehistoric looking false flower heads of the hardneck garlic rarely appear in supermarkets, but for garlic growers and folks lucky enough to live near garlic growers, scapes are an exciting marker of the harvest season. I look forward to my scapes all year with as much enthusiasm as I look forward to strawberries, sweet corn or pumpkins.

Garlic grows by cloning. In September, garlic growers plant individual cloves from their best garlic heads harvested earlier in the summer. The garlic heads that grow from each of those cloves are genetically identical replications of the heads that they came from. All the garlic grown is effectively one huge organism that keeps replicating over time, with subtle local variations in flavor or color. Despite the enticing photos on pages of catalogs offering countless garlic varieties, the best garlic to grow is that kind that already grows well in your area, so buy your garlic for planting locally, from someone else who has been doing it successfully. Just look for organically grown heads that haven't been treated with a sprouting inhibitor.

Cut when they are tender, around the time they make one single loop, garlic scapes can be used like garlic in any recipe from pesto to soup. Chopped fine and mixed with olive oil, scapes make a fabulous spread for bread. stirred into non-fat yoghurt that has been drained to leave a thick farm cheese, with just a pinch of sea salt and black pepper, along with whatever other fresh herbs you care to add, makes a delicious non-fat dip for veggies or pita chips.

Left on the plant, scapes become woody, and sap energy and volume from the garlic bulb below the soil. Eventually the false flower opens into tiny bulbils. These can also be grown into garlic, but it takes a minimum of two years to do so. You plant the garlic bulbils and grow them into single cloves one year,  then plant those cloves the next year to let them develop into heads of garlic.

Garlic is rich in vitamins, minerals and antioxidants and is touted for near-magical healing powers due to its antibiotic effect. Garlic heads store well hung in a mesh bag in a warm dry place. Garlic can be dried and ground into garlic powder, or peeled and chopped and placed in a jar covered with olive oil and stashed in the refrigerator for easy use in winter recipes. 

Growing your own garlic allows you to reap two fully harvests from the same plant--the scapes in June, the garlic heads in August. It's easy to grow a full years supply of garlic for a family of four garlic-lovers, plus enough garlic to replant in the fall for next year's crop, in a single 4' by 8' raised bed. Garlic plants are incredibly dramatic, almost tropical, and can be grown attractively mixed in with flower beds or landscaping. On a balcony garden, garlic can be grown as single plants in the center of a 5 gallon bucket, surrounded by greens like chard, spinach and lettuce. Even a windowbox can support a few garlic plants as a backdrop for summer flowers; when you harvest the garlic midsummer, substitute in your fall mum plants.

More and more garlic in American supermarkets is being imported from China. This humble, delicious and powerful bulb that can easily be grown in all climate and hardiness zones all across North America, that takes up little garden space and is even suitable to container gardening, is getting loaded onto container ships and, at the cost of vast quantities of petroleum, shipped half way around the world to wind up on American plates.  I urge everyone to plant some garlic for themselves this fall, improving our food security by reducing our dependency on foreign food imports. If that's not practical for you, go buy some garlic scapes at your local farmers market now to help support your local garlic growers.