Beautiful wonderful delectible healing garlic. I could go on.
I even like how it plants. You plant it in the fall (not in the busy spring planting season) and harvest “between solstice and fourth of July” (in the words of my farmer friend Eric from Country Pleasures Farm). Oh my, how we have harvested. Thank goodness Phil likes to think outside the box and used his plow to dig under the garlic row. We used to pitchfork every bulb! And stab some. He only sliced a few with the plow. After the row is plowed, its collecting and bringing to the barn in the pickup truck. Pitchforks, lay still. Saved Phil’s back and tons of time. The barn chairs are full of garlic bundles instead of concert-goers. Phil says the bundles are not watching a concert, they are awaiting trial. Who shall be hung (in the barn to cure) and buried in the fall? Who shall be eaten alive by CSA members and Common Market shoppers? But I prefer the vision of a spicy concert. Before I send you a photo of the garlic harvest, I need to share the scape photos I took last month.
OK, I love garlic scapes too. They are a fun and loopy byproduct of the garlic plant. Its the seed pod, and since you don’t even grow garlic from its seed (you plant its cloves from the bulb), you can snap off these seed pods. i love that they are edible. They have a garlicy juice that stays on my hands for a day or two. Chop em up and scapes are wonderful in stir-fries or roasted or baked.
Here are some scape models:
