For those of you who are growing garlic, now is the time to snip the scapes.

Our garlic leaves are waist-high and even avid gardeners have said, “I didn’t know you grew leeks.” We don’t grow leeks, but the garlic plant looks like a giant leek. The scape (which has a round stem not a flat leaf like the rest of the plant) sprouts in the middle and will loop twice. If not clipped off, the scape will flower. We want all the plant energy directed to the part we want to eat: the bulb. Leaving the scape on will result in small heads of garlic.

I am tempted to give the discarded scapes to the chickens just to see if we could get garlic-flavored eggs!

We plan to dig our homegrown garlic on July 4 and then have it available for sale at Kitchen Conservatory. Join us on July 8 for a all-garlic-all-the-time cooking class using this wonderful herb.