The easiest way to grow garlic is simply to get a head (the clump of cloves) of garlic in the fall (for us New Englanders, other times elsewhere), break it into individual cloves, plant the cloves (pointy end up) in rich soil, mulch them well and then weed, as needed, until harvest time.
We grow some of our garlic that way. But we're also cheapskates. Or at least I am, and my co-gardeners are garlic-lovers, and are willing to go along with whatever gets them the most garlic.
The harder and more time-consuming way to grow garlic is to grow it from what amounts to seed. Garlic sends up a stalk with a head on it called a "scape." The scape, if allowed to grow to maturity, consists of dozens of miniature cloves (the smaller examples in the photo).
The standard advice is to cut off the scapes before the heads mature, so that all of the plant's energy goes into forming the garlic head. I don't know if there's ever been any real scientific study of the issue, and I've seen anecdotal evidence that it doesn't really make any difference.
If you cut them off, you can eat the miniature cloves in the scapes pretty much the same as regular garlic. It's a little milder and, obviously, you're not going to roast such itty-bitty things, but they work great in stir-fries or sauteed and added to anything you'd add regular garlic to.
Otherwise, if you've got some space and some patience, you can use them to grow more garlic plants. Let the scapes mature, and then dry them until they crumble into individual cloves. In the fall (or other appropriate planting time), broadcast them in a prepared bed. In the spring, you'll see little green sprouts, looking almost like a newly seeded lawn. Just ignore them. (Here's where the lazy gardener and the cheap gardener coincide in me.) You don't even have to weed, other than to remove anything that would become invasive over the long term (e.g., briars, tree seedlings or pokeweed).
Over the summer, each sprout will form a single clove (like the larger examples in the photo, about the size of a nickel, although some can be barely larger than the miniature cloves in the scapes). If you wish, you can thin them out a bit in the summer, eating the small cloves, which, like the scapes, will be a bit milder than garlic grown the traditional way. At stome point, the sprouts will fall over and disappear (with the cloves still underground), but the next spring will come up with even more vigor, eventually sending up scapes, just like traditionally grown garlic. If harvested that summer, they will likely have two cloves instead of the initial single clove, or if left another summer, they will have 2 or 3 cloves.
They never get as big as traditionally grown garlic, but they have the advantages of being: a) free, b) care-free and c) just the right size for cooking a meal for one or two people. The disadvantages is that they're a) slow to produce a harvest, b) space-hogs for gardes with size limits, and c) a nuisance to peel if you're trying to make a meal for six or more people.
For our Recovery Garden, the advantages outweigh the disadvantages, since we have more space than we need, and we can sow 'em and forget 'em without having to sacrifice some other crop. We've found that they actually seem to thrive when competing with weeds. This summer, we decided to clear out the bed where they've been growing for at least five years, so we could plant something else there next year, and the biggest clumps of them were tangled up in the roots of briars and tree saplings.
We have between five and ten pounds of these first-year garlics to be planted in a new bed (still being prepared), along with a few thousand of the miniature cloves from this year's scapes. The plan is to divide the new bed into thirds, with one-third ready for harvest (second or third year cloves) each year. The one-year-old cloves will go into the first third of the bed this fall, the miniature cloves from the scapes into the other two thirds. Then, next summer we'll harvest the transplanted first-year cloves and replant that bed with new miniature cloves from next year's scapes. After that, we'll just keep harvesting and replanting a section each year.
We grow some of our garlic that way. But we're also cheapskates. Or at least I am, and my co-gardeners are garlic-lovers, and are willing to go along with whatever gets them the most garlic.
The harder and more time-consuming way to grow garlic is to grow it from what amounts to seed. Garlic sends up a stalk with a head on it called a "scape." The scape, if allowed to grow to maturity, consists of dozens of miniature cloves (the smaller examples in the photo).
The standard advice is to cut off the scapes before the heads mature, so that all of the plant's energy goes into forming the garlic head. I don't know if there's ever been any real scientific study of the issue, and I've seen anecdotal evidence that it doesn't really make any difference.
If you cut them off, you can eat the miniature cloves in the scapes pretty much the same as regular garlic. It's a little milder and, obviously, you're not going to roast such itty-bitty things, but they work great in stir-fries or sauteed and added to anything you'd add regular garlic to.
Otherwise, if you've got some space and some patience, you can use them to grow more garlic plants. Let the scapes mature, and then dry them until they crumble into individual cloves. In the fall (or other appropriate planting time), broadcast them in a prepared bed. In the spring, you'll see little green sprouts, looking almost like a newly seeded lawn. Just ignore them. (Here's where the lazy gardener and the cheap gardener coincide in me.) You don't even have to weed, other than to remove anything that would become invasive over the long term (e.g., briars, tree seedlings or pokeweed).
Over the summer, each sprout will form a single clove (like the larger examples in the photo, about the size of a nickel, although some can be barely larger than the miniature cloves in the scapes). If you wish, you can thin them out a bit in the summer, eating the small cloves, which, like the scapes, will be a bit milder than garlic grown the traditional way. At stome point, the sprouts will fall over and disappear (with the cloves still underground), but the next spring will come up with even more vigor, eventually sending up scapes, just like traditionally grown garlic. If harvested that summer, they will likely have two cloves instead of the initial single clove, or if left another summer, they will have 2 or 3 cloves.
They never get as big as traditionally grown garlic, but they have the advantages of being: a) free, b) care-free and c) just the right size for cooking a meal for one or two people. The disadvantages is that they're a) slow to produce a harvest, b) space-hogs for gardes with size limits, and c) a nuisance to peel if you're trying to make a meal for six or more people.
For our Recovery Garden, the advantages outweigh the disadvantages, since we have more space than we need, and we can sow 'em and forget 'em without having to sacrifice some other crop. We've found that they actually seem to thrive when competing with weeds. This summer, we decided to clear out the bed where they've been growing for at least five years, so we could plant something else there next year, and the biggest clumps of them were tangled up in the roots of briars and tree saplings.
We have between five and ten pounds of these first-year garlics to be planted in a new bed (still being prepared), along with a few thousand of the miniature cloves from this year's scapes. The plan is to divide the new bed into thirds, with one-third ready for harvest (second or third year cloves) each year. The one-year-old cloves will go into the first third of the bed this fall, the miniature cloves from the scapes into the other two thirds. Then, next summer we'll harvest the transplanted first-year cloves and replant that bed with new miniature cloves from next year's scapes. After that, we'll just keep harvesting and replanting a section each year.
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