Garlic

E and I mostly ignored our garlic this year. Apart from adding a top-layer of compost earlier this year, we really haven't done anything (even failing to water through the drought). We were thrilled, then, to find that despite our total neglect, our plants produced scapes in mid-May. We promptly snapped them off and brought them home, where they languished in the fridge for a few weeks.

The garlic scapes eventually made their way to garlic scape pesto. After a quick glance here for the recipe I found a reminder to myself to make roasted scape pesto, so tried that with a small portion of the scapes. I was worried it would taste like dried grass, but instead it's almost chocolatey. I think I still prefer the sharper taste of the raw pesto, but the roasted stuff (on the left below) is very good.


As instructed by various instructions written by garlic farmers, we continued to ignore our plants for the next month or so. We expected to harvest the garlic in August, but our plants started to die around May; the hardnecks were mostly dry by mid-June, and the softnecks gave up the ghost by early July. In accordance with the growers' directions, we pulled up the plants when they were mostly dead - still with a few green leaves left - and lo and behold, we had garlic bulbs! Really, this shouldn't be so amazing, but I am constantly impressed when things "work". Admittedly our garlic is very shrimpy, and we could have done much more with watering and weeding, but for next to no effort, we're definitely happy with what we got.

The garlic is curing away under our back porch. In another week (after about 3-4 weeks of drying total), we'll bring it in, clean it up, and store it in our makeshift root cellar.


I'm afraid I have mostly confused which bunch of garlic is which cultivar (I'm so embarrassed by this fact I can't begin to explain why I am revealing it), but I might be able to figure it out.... This is what I remember (so far):
- I harvested three rows on one day, then two rows on another.
- The first three rows harvested were two hardneck (Music and Fireball!) and one softneck (Inchelium Red!).
- The second two rows harvested were all softneck (German Red and Italian Purple!)
- The second row of hardneck had more purple in the bulb than the first (Fireball!).
- There are two bunches or more of each of the three cultivars harvested the first day.
- There is one bunch each of the two cultivars harvested the second day.
- The second batch of harvested garlic is hung under the porch farthest from the house.
Now to draw my little logic chart...

Clearly we need to repeat this experiment in order to clearly compare the different types of garlic. Unfortunately, like potatoes, garlic has to be on a three year rotation. Mumsy and Paw, we are coming for your space!

Next in this bed: bush beans.

Garlic Scapes (Catching up, again)

What could be more lovely than two people breathing toxic garlic fumes all over the house, creating a hostile environment for all living things with noses? Nothing. Nothing could be lovelier.

Enter garlic scapes. Garlic scapes are the green shoots that grow from hardneck garlic in late spring, and are generally harvested while still tender as they curtail further growth of the garlic bulb. Although these are delicious stir-fried or roasted (so delicious), and although scapes store very well in the fridge, garlic scape pesto is perhaps even more delicious, and even easier to store long-term. Although I typically throw this together without a whole lot of thought, I keep the standard pesto recipe in mind: parmesan, nuts (walnuts if you're cheap, pine nuts if you're fancy), and olive oil to bind. Usually I skimp on the nuts, and don't do anything special at all, but I'm suddenly dreaming of roasted garlic scape pesto. That's right - roasted. June better hurry up so I can give that a shot. In the mean time, we have a few ounces of the raw stuff tucked away in the freezer. It is fantastic on pasta with roasted veggies and chicken, although I think it would probably make a mean garlic bread too.


Thoughts for future scapeyness:

• roasted scape pesto
• raw scape pesto garlic bread