I always imagine of some sort of sea creature when I hear the word scape. Maybe it's because it sounds like skate, that ray-like fish. Recently, when I was presented with a bucket full of these twisting tendrils, I wasn't convinced that they weren't from the sea instead of the garden. Scapes are the long gracefully looping flower stalks of the garlic plant. Cutting the flower stalk encourages the plant to put more energy down into its bulb; the best time to cut scapes is when the the flower stalk has finished its first loop.
Now, I have to confess that I have never been very good at utilizing garlic scapes. My friend Lorna, a long-time Concord gardener, grows about 40 garlic plants each year out at the Concord Community Gardens. Her scape pesto was a hit at last month's Capital City Organic Gardeners meeting. My husband puts in a 6-by-40-foot patch of garlic. In the third week of October he plants cloves, blunt ends down, 2 inches deep and 8 inches apart in rows spaced 8 inches apart. My math skills are not stunning, but that comes out to about 300 plants. I'm just not willing to make and eat that much pesto.
Naomi Scanlon of Canterbury's Two Sisters Garlic has been growing and selling garlic and garlic products for 12 years, and it was from her that Lorna got her pesto recipe. Scanlon believes that you can never have too much scape pesto and suggested adding it to salad dressings, sauces, soups or just spreading it on a favorite cracker. Other ideas, gathered from Scanlon's customers at last week's Concord Farmers' Market include: scape omelets, scape and bacon wrapped scallops, scapes with steamed mussels, and even a spread made with chopped scapes, cream cheese and maple syrup. I'll try anything with maple syrup in it!
If you end up with a big pile of scapes you don't know what to do with, do what I do: give them away. The person you give them to may come up with the next great garlic scape culinary masterpiece. If you still have some left, I've heard that they make good woodchuck repellent.
Enough about scapes. Let's discuss the real joy of growing garlic: digging the bulb. In the Concord area, most of us harvest in the first or second week of August. Timing is important. Dig too early and the bulbs will not have reached their full size; dig too late and the bulb will begin to split apart. The trick is to wait until all but four or five of the leaves have turned brown and then lift your garlic. Each leaf corresponds to a layer of the protective paper that surrounds the cluster of cloves. When a leaf turns brown on top, the protective layer it is connected to below begins to degrade underground. When all the leaves are brown, the head splits apart and, free of their covering, each clove gets ready to form a new plant. To be able to store garlic successfully, the bulb needs to be whole, covered and intact.
Drying garlic thoroughly is crucial to a long shelf life. Well dryed garlic should last all winter and into the spring. Leave the stems on and place the garlic where it will be well ventilated and out of sun and rain. When the steams are nice and crispy, it's time to trim them from the bulbs. The porch is a good place for drying and at the end of the summer our porch is usually full of our garlic and that of gardening friends. Drying takes about two weeks. We have a nice wood and hardware cloth rack built for the purpose, but before that we made do with a window screen or two stretched between two chair backs.
I'm sure I don't have to tell you what to do with a head of good homegrown garlic but, before you dig in, separate out a few of the nicest heads – the ones with the biggest cloves. These are the ones you want to store in a dry, dark place. In October it will be time to pull them out, take off the paper, separate the cloves and plant next summer's crop. In cold rainy April, when you are desperate to see anything green, the new shoots will emerge. Two of my favorite words in the world are “Garlic's up!”
Claudia Altemus tends her gardens in Concord. For more information about growing garlic and other delicious garden crops, and for a tour of some inspiring gardens, join the Capital Area Organic Gardeners on Wednesday, July 18, at 7 p.m. More info at ccognh.wordpress.com.
