It’s garlic scape season! Garlic scapes are the stem and flower bud of hardneck garlic plants. Each plant produces only one scape, which means these tasty garden treats won’t be around for long. Tracy and Michael spent some time yesterday in the garlic beds making the first of several passes to harvest all the curly scapes they could find, and we will have them available for farm shares for next week. Fun fact: when harvesting the scape, the goal is to pull the entire scape out of the stem, which requires some finesse. We sure appreciate the attention to detail our farm crew gives to the task!
We don’t just harvest the scapes because they taste good, though. The garlic bulbs have a few more weeks to grow before we harvest them and by removing the scape we are helping the plants to direct all of their energy into the bulbs.
Garlic scapes can be used in SO MANY recipes! From stir fry to pesto, marinade to quiche, scapes can be subbed in pretty much any recipe that calls for garlic cloves. Be sure to add some garlic scapes to your share this week if you haven’t tried them before!
