The cool thing about cool weather is that there is some stuff you can still get in the ground and get a jump on spring. In my Connecticut zone, you can get some great early garlic (June) by planting a crop in the fall.
Now.. the secret to good fall garlic planting?
Timing.
And in my case I may have blown it, but we’ll see. I’ve got myself a resilient, feisty garlic type (russian red.. spicy and delicious) and I think it’s going to be okay. But.. tonight… the frost comes. The trick to garlic timing is that you want to get it in the ground and give it some time to settle in a bit, but you don’t want it to be so warm that the garlic starts to grow. Some roots.. sure. That’s fine. But the start of a neck? Probably bad.
Ideally I would have gotten these guys in the dirt maybe a week or two ago, but my beds are raised and should be okay through this freeze/frost. We’ll see.
Here’s how you do it.
- Break apart the full garlic bulb into individual cloves.
- Plant each garlic clove an inch or two into the ground.
- The pointy side should point.. up. The root side is usually a little flatter.
- Cover em up with some dirt.
- In my case, I added some nice maple leaves on top with some straw just to serve as an insulator for these first few weeks.
- In the spring, they’ll start growing nicely.
- Enjoy some scape! Grow a hard neck variety and you’ll get this extra bit of yumminess. (The scape is essentially the neck, but it’s cut early and eaten.. also helps the garlic to keep growing.)
Filed under: Uncategorized , garlic in the fall, how to plant garlic, planting garlic, russian red garlic
Yes, yes, yes, garlic scapes are the best! OMG, the flavor they give to stir-fries, sautees, and pretty much everything! Great post, and good luck with your ‘Russian Red’!!!
Agree! I guess I’d describe the flavor of scapes as garlicish.. but a bit more mild. Good with anything really.
I was just asking Scott yesterday when we can put garlic in again. We’ve enjoyed our all summer long and we would have enjoyed it a lot longer if we hadn’t let half of it rot
Love that curly-cue that the bottom pictured garlic is doing.
I’m hoping it works out for me! If not, heck, I’ll just plant some more in the spring.
And I should probably make this clearer.. but both of these pictures aren’t mine. I pulled them from Google images just to illustrate the stuff.. i was too lazy to take my own pictures and don’t have any of the scape anyway!
Yummy scapes! Scapes in soup! Delicious Recipe…
Garlic Scape Soup
From Super Natural Cooking, by Heidi Swanson
2 tablespoons clarified butter
2 dozen garlic scapes
3 large russet potatoes, unpeeled and cut into ½ inch dice
5 cups vegetable stock
2 large handfuls spinach leaves, stemmed
Juice of ½ lemon
½ teaspoon fine-grain sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper
¼ cup heavy cream
Chive blossoms, for garnish
Heat the butter in a large saucepan over medium heat, then add the scapes and sauté for 2 minutes. Add the potatoes and stock, cover, and simmer for about 20 minutes, or until the potatoes are cooked through and beginning to break down.
Remove from the heat, add the spinach, and puree using a hand blender. (If you must use a conventional blender, be careful; the hot liquid can burst out the top and make a huge, potentially painful mess. Try leaving the lid slightly ajar to allow steam to escape. Cover the top with a kitchen towel and blend in batches at low speed.) Season with the lemon juice, salt, and a few grinds of pepper. Whisk in the cream for a silkier texture. If the soup tastes flat, add salt a few big pinches at a time until the flavors really pop. Serve garnished with the chive blossoms.
Serves 4 to 6.
Lovely recipe sunspot! It seems like most scape recipes are for pesto.. this is an awesome and new recipe for me. Thanks.
Crum!! My garlic has green shoots coming up already!! I must have planted it too early. This is my first year to try it…I’ll wait a bit longer next time.
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Hi, What are garlic scapes? thanx farmerjiminpa
Howdy. Garlic scapes are the stiff, curling stems that appear in stiffneck varieties of garlic. It’s the shoot that comes up that has a little garlic bump in it. It is a false flower.
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