It’s finally here, the long awaited garlic scape season- a bit early this year I might add. Garlic, as you know if you’ve planted it, gets planted in the fall in our climate, hunkers down beneath a layer of mulch all winter, and sends up a soaring, swan necked flower heads in June. This head -which really looks like some sort of heron or egret- sits on a long curvy neck. You have to snap off the garlic scape- just where it comes out of the leaves to tell the plant to focus its energy on making a nice fat garlic bulb for you and not on any showy display of flowery sex parts....

But we don’t just harvest the scapes to help the plant...some people (like me) think the scapes might be the most exciting part of growing garlic! Snap them, rinse them off and chop them into one inch segments to toss in a stir fry for a special treat. You can also throw them on the grill, steam them like asparagus or grind them into a strong flavored pesto. Whatever you do- don’t forget about them as you need to harvest them if you want your garlic plant to head up in July!