I love everything about this generous, delicious plant!
Burying the cloves in October after the first frost. Being greeted in April by the tender Spring-green shoots in my barren vegetable patch. Harvesting glorious curly garlic scapes in June. Drying the pods in July. Dependable, easy to grow, and oh-so-tasty!
It is part of my trio of reliable crops: garlic, rhubarb and Brussels sprouts. My kitchen is nearly useless without olive oil and lots of garlic (really, the whole allium family…shallots, scallions, Walla Walla onions, etc.). Last year I met my goal: Grow enough German and Music garlic to eat all year, with seed garlic to repeat it this year!
What to do 222 garlic scapes…
Eat them to your hearts’ content as fresh, brilliant green, tasty stalks in salads, in stir fry, on the grill, on a plate of crudité, Then…
- blend scapes with olive oil and tray freeze small scoops,
- tired of blending, rough chop scapes and bag freeze,
- tired of chopping, throw the last of them in a freezer bag whole.
Throughout the winter, chopped scapes brighten a stir fry or pasta dish. Whole scapes add intrigue to pizza. Add a couple of frozen scoops of blended scapes to simmer in olive oil with roasted tomatoes (2/3 cup) and chopped 1/4 of a preserved lemon. Toss it with your favorite cooked pasta (1/2 pound) and top with grated Locatelli Romano cheese… an elegant and easy midweek delight!
…and 222 pods of garlic?
Set aside 50-60 pods for seed. Again, eat garlic with wild abandon! Then braid stems together or trim stems to two inches long if they are hardneck varieties (German and Music are). Store in a cool, dark, dry place.
These varieties have very large cloves equivalent to 2-3 typical ones, so …
Skip peeling garlic!
I use the trimmed whole pods, removing all loose skins, then score the outside of the cloves and toss the whole pod into my favorite soup or stew, puttanesca or bolognese sauce or in a pan of slow-roasting chicken. Hold the stem while you slip the buttery soft clove out the skin to mix into sauces or spread on grilled baguette slices. Heaven.
You can see the scoring on that HUGE clove over red sauce. “Chicken with 40 Cloves of Garlic” becomes “Chicken with 7 Pods of Garlic,” just add browned, seasoned chicken and 1 cup white wine, cover (tight lid or dough seal of 2 cups flour, 1T. salt and water) and bake 350°F for 1.5 hours! I love garlic.
Photos by SAM and Bob Steiner, Spring 2022
