Just like regular garlic, elephant garlic produces flower stalks, often called scapes. These draw energy from the plant and should be removed. However, elephant garlic scapes are edible – and delicious!
Should elephant garlic be allowed to flower?
Elephant garlic will send up flower stalks, or scapes, just like regular garlic. These scapes draw energy from the plant that should be going toward bulking up the bulb. So cut the scapes back before they begin to curl or bloom. The scapes are edible, so they don’t have to go to waste.
Should you let garlic flower?
While it’s not recommended to let them flower if you want good, robust bulbs, the presence of the garlic scape itself doesn’t seem to slow bulb development. A better option is to cut off the garlic scape when it begins to curl and eat it!
What happens if you let garlic flower?
The flower takes energy away from the developing underground bulb, but doesn’t detract from the flavour unless left to fully open and mature, so don’t worry too much if you miss a couple. Scapes are edible, with a milder taste than the garlic bulb itself.
Should I remove scapes from elephant garlic?
It’s best to remove these (and eat the delicious scapes!), so that all the plant’s energy is used to feed the bulb rather than the flower. By late June, you should have your own ripe Elephant Garlic, ready to be harvested and eaten.
What are the little bulbs on elephant garlic?
Little bulblets called “corms” may also develop outside a garlic bulb. Some gardeners toss them, but you can plant them to produce more garlic. After scoring, soak them in water overnight and plant them. The developing plants will be smaller than those started from cloves, and will produce only rounds the first year.
Is garlic ready to harvest when it flowers?
When the lower two or three leaves turn yellow or brown, bulbs are ready to harvest. If you wait too long beyond this point, your bulbs won’t have as many protective layers around cloves, which means they won’t store well. At the same time, the remaining leaves will probably be showing yellow or brown tips.
What happens when you don’t harvest your garlic?
If you don’t cut your scapes and leave them on the plant, the bulbils turn into flowers and seeds. Even if you don’t intend to eat your garlic scapes, it’s still a good idea to snip them at the base of their stalk so that all the energy can go back into growing the bulb underground.
What is the bulb at the top of a garlic plant?
bulbils
What are bulbils? Garlic bulbils are the small bulbs that develop in the garlic scape if you leave it on the plant. Garlic scapes are often referred to as garlic flowers. However, scapes aren’t true flowers – the reproductive parts only partially form and they are not viable.
Can you eat garlic after it has flowered?
Harvesting Flowering Garlic
Before garlic begins flowering, you can cut and harvest the scapes for cooking. Fortunately all parts of the garlic plant is edible, meaning that you can still harvest your garlic during or after the flowering cycle.
When should you eat garlic flowers?
Garlic flowers are edible. They are best when immature or just beginning to bloom. As the seeds develop, the flower buds become hard and woody. Even though they are still edible, the texture is undesirable.
Do garlic flowers produce seeds?
Although you may see or hear it referred to as seed, seed garlic, or even seed stock, the truth is garlic doesn’t usually set true seed, and on those rare occasions when it does, garlic seed resembles the small, black seeds of onions. The flowers of garlic plants usually fade long before producing any seed.
Should I cut the flower heads off garlic?
By cutting off the scape you are asking the plant to send all of it’s energy in to increasing the bulb size, rather than in putting energy toward flowers and seed. Since the bulb is what we eat, we recommend cutting the scape.
How do I know when my elephant garlic is ready to harvest?
Elephant garlic is ready to harvest once the foliage turns yellow or brown. Use a spade to gently lift the plants out of the soil (pulling them can damage the stem or root system, which may affect how long the bulbs will store for), and brush as much soil from the bulbs as possible.
What do you do with elephant garlic bulbils?
These stem-bulging bulbs form on soft neck garlic. They should be snipped off to concentrate their growing effort to the bulbs, but if a few escape the garden knife then dry them out and plant with the rest of your garlic the following season. These rock hard attachments are the seeds of the elephant garlic.
Do bees like garlic flowers?
Garlic, along with other members of the onion family, are great pollinating plants. They attract many types of bees and other pollinating insects.
What happens if you leave elephant garlic in the ground?
However, if you leave the plants alone, you’ll find each clove becomes a bulb next year. And this method would perpetuate the plants forever – elephant garlic will grow happily as a perennial. This would also affect the overall size of each clove, as the plants become congested.
What can I do with garlic scape bulbs?
- Cut garlic scapes into 6-inch pieces and pickle them. (Think pickled green beans or thin kosher dill pickles.)
- Sauté scapes and use them as a pizza topping.
- Use the scapes whole in a warm-weather-friendly braise.
- Mix chopped scapes with a stick of butter to make a garlicky compound butter for grilled or pan-fried fish.
What can I do with small garlic bulbs?
Hard-core garlic lovers eat them raw like onion scallions. They provide an attractive early spring crop. To grow garlic scallions, plant small cloves close together in furrows, simply dropping them in almost shoulder to shoulder, any way up that they fall.
When should I stop watering before harvesting?
Stop Watering 1-3 Days Before Harvest – After flushing, in the final days of harvest, you can further stress your plants by stopping watering. You want to allow the plant to start to wilt just a small amount, because then the plant “thinks” it is dying and as a last-ditch effort, it will increase resin development.
Why is my garlic so small?
Small garlic bulbs are commonly a result of planting the wrong variety, sowing at the wrong time, overcrowding, poor soil conditions, incorrect watering, and harvesting garlic at the wrong time.