The mid-season garlic harvest nobody talks about
If you grow hardneck garlic, your plants will do something dramatic in late spring. A single thick stem will push up out of the centre of each plant, twist itself into a curly loop, and start to develop a bulbous head at the tip. That's the scape.
Most people leave them. A few cut them and throw them away. The smart move is to cut them and eat them. Here's the full story.
What's a scape, exactly
The scape is the garlic flower stalk. The plant pushes it up to flower and produce bulbils (tiny clone-seeds) at the top. It's a reproductive effort, and the energy comes straight from the bulb growing below ground.
If you leave the scape, the plant puts energy into making bulbils. The bulb stays smaller.
If you cut the scape, the plant redirects that energy back into the bulb. You get larger, denser garlic at harvest time. Studies put the size difference at around 20 to 30 percent.
Why this is a bonus
The scape itself is delicious. It tastes like a mild garlic chive. Tender stem, gentle bite, great raw or cooked. Restaurants pay daft money for them at farmers markets in May and November.
You cut them once a year, in early summer, and you get both: a bigger garlic harvest AND a bonus crop of one of the best green vegetables of the season.
When to cut
The window is short. You want to cut just after the scape has curled into its first loop, before the bulbous head at the tip starts to swell.
In NZ, this is usually late October to early December depending on region. Auckland tends to be earlier (October to November), South Island later.
If you wait until the scape has straightened up and the head is swelling, it's still edible but the stem will be tough and woody. Cut early for the best texture.
How to cut
Easy. Snap or snip the scape at the base of the curl, just above the topmost leaf. Use scissors or your fingers. You don't want to disturb the bulb or the plant, just remove the stalk.
Each plant produces exactly one scape. Once it's gone, it's gone for the season.
What to do with them
Scapes are versatile. Use them anywhere you'd use spring onions, chives, or mild garlic.
- Chop and toss raw through salads
- Sauté in butter with eggs
- Blitz into pesto (the standout move, see below)
- Pickle in vinegar for crunch through summer
- Add to soup at the end of cooking for fresh garlic flavour
- Grill whole over coals with olive oil and salt
- Wrap around fish before baking
The scape pesto move
Blitz scapes (about a cup), parmesan (50g), pine nuts or walnuts (a handful), olive oil (a generous pour), lemon juice, salt. Use immediately or freeze in ice cube trays.
It's like garlic pesto but milder and grassier. Goes with everything: pasta, roast meat, grilled vegetables, on toast.
If you want bulbils too
Don't cut every scape. Leave one or two to flower and form bulbils, then harvest them when the papery cover splits and dries. Plant the bulbils in autumn for the long game (we wrote a separate piece on this).
This way you get the bulb size benefit on most plants, plus future garlic stock from the others.
Softneck varieties
If you grow softneck garlic (the kind sold in braids at supermarkets), you don't get scapes. Softnecks rarely flower. This is one of the small advantages of growing hardneck.
The honest bit
Cutting scapes is one of those small gardening moves that costs you ten minutes and pays you bigger garlic plus a free crop of restaurant-grade greens. Once you've eaten scape pesto, you'll be religious about it.
Welcome to the dirt cult. We harvest twice a year from the same bed.
