Elephant Garlic scape....what do I do?

15 years ago

Today I noticed that my elephant garlic is forming it's flower. After trying to do some research...I am even more confused!

Question #1: Should I cut the flower stem off?

Question #2: The cloves have been in the ground since last fall...will I have cloves this year or next? (this is the really confusing part!)

Question #3: If I only have rounds...what do I do with them? Replant immediately or store?

Any info would be helpful.

Here is a link that might be useful: How my garden grows!

Featured Answer

neohippie

13 years ago

Do NOT toss the garlic scape! When it gets about as thick as a green bean, eat it!

I love them stir-fried. It's like the flavor of garlic with the texture of asparagus. I've heard they're also good grilled. I like them when they still have some crunch to them.

They're so yummy that I almost don't care whether you're supposed to remove them or not to increase bulb size. Besides, even though I always eat them, my bulbs were just fine.

I think the elephant scapes are better than hardneck scapes. Elephant scapes are thicker and more tender. But they're both good.

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Comments (10)

garliclady
15 years ago
I would cut the scape On elephant garlic I think it does affect the size.You can replant elephant garlic right after harvest or store them then replant in a fall. I Personally would plant in the fall and plant a cover crop or plant summer crops in those rows I rather not have to weed and water something I wasn't going to harvest till summer 2010
vmi1991
15 years ago
when the scapes get no longer than 12 inches, cut them off to increase the size/yield of cloves.

Then 1, steam the scapes (include the bloom pod) for about 3-5 mins , careful turns mushy easily. Think asparagus here. Put some butter on them and Yumm!

2, put them in the ground somewhere and they will come as 1st year or green garlic. pull as desired, chop like scallions or chives, stir fry

3, toss in compost or trash

The littlr, bitsy tinyh bulb-looking things you'll find when you harvest in June/July can be replanted and will come up in Feb-April 2010 and can be used as green garlic. they otherwise will be these single golf-ball sized cloves that can be replanted again in the fall for full-sized ones in 2011.

BTW elephant garlic makes a nice bloom like Allium Globemaster, bees love it but cut it before the seeds mature or garlic will be growing from here to breakfast on your place.
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Very difficult to tell what you are growing from the photo of the tubers Rick but it is likely Colocasia esculenta. This is the most commonly grown form of "elephant ear. Despite common misconceptions, you do not have a bulb or a corm, your plant is growing from a tuber since all the roots grow from the top. Read the link below and it will tell you the differences. All aroids grow from tubers, not corms or bulbs. Your plant could also be a Xanthosoma or one of several other genera. Look at this link and hopefully you can tell the difference. Tubers, bulbs and corms all all very different physically despite the fact they are all starch storage units and underground stems. http://www.exoticrainforest.com/Colocasia%20esculenta%20large%20pc.html There are hundreds of leaf forms to this species due to natural variation. Sounds like you did it right. Steve Here is a link that might be useful: bulbs, corms, tubers, stems, etc
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Sarah, maybe we need some definitions. I don't know any place that sells garlic for $2.50 per _clove_. When you buy garlic (whether in the shop or elsewhere), what you get is called either a bulb or a head. It is composed of smaller parts, each in it's own wrapper. Those are the cloves. Surely you meant $2.50/head? Besides which, it's a one-time purchase, not an on-going expense. A typical bulb of hardneck garlic contains, depending on variety, 6-10 cloves. Let's do a worst-case math excercise: Variety X costs $15/lb. A half pound of X contains two bulbs, each of which contains 6 large cloves. Cost of seed stock: $8.00 For the sake of discussion, let's assume 100% harvest. You will plant 12 cloves, at a cost of .66 each. You will harvest 72 cloves, bringing the cost down to .095 each. Let's assume you eat 2 of the bulbs, and replant the rest. So, the second year you will plant 60 cloves, and harvest 360 cloves, bringing the cost down to .018 each. Repeat this process, and by the third harvest the cost per clove is a virtual zero (in actuality, .0035). I use three seasons for a reason. Not only does it show how little garlic costs, long term. It deals with the localization effect Tracy refers to. Most garlic has to adapt to the local conditions in your garden. Typically it takes three years before a particular variety reaches its full potential there. So what happens is that by the third year, you are growing the best garlic possible, at, literally, no cost. BTW, if you plant on 6" centers, you would still have room for 80 plants in the 2 x 10 plot. If you plant on 5" centers, that jumps to an easy 100. A note on trading: While there are no rules, the usual practice is to trade full heads, rather than individual cloves. And the trading quantity, most often, is two heads. So, for both quantity and quality sake, figure on the second season before you start any serious trading. But keep in mind that garlic heads tend to be friendly, sharing people, who often enough will just send you a head or two of a variety. Unfortunately, we (that is, those in the U.S.) cannot send garlic to Canada (it's classed as a plant). So you'll have to find folks up there to trade/share with. But, yes, it's just like tomatoes in that you can build quite a collection just by purchasing one variety of "seed."
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The sand leek (Allium scorodoprasum) is also sometimes called rocambole and usually but not always has bulbils along with the flowers. Elephant garlic is also sometimes called and even sold incurrectly as rocambole. The sand leek will have small bulbs with small cloves, and the elephant garlic will have large cloves on bigger bulbs or simply as big rounds and will have much heavier and robust foliage, while the sand leek is much daintier. If that is the foliage in the picture, I would guess that you got elephants that were originally identified as rocambole, or perhaps one of its wilder leek relatives such as the kurrat or Egyptian leek which is a bit smaller than the closely related elephants and there are several strains of each of those as well. Looks like one of the leeks to me. (they are all edible)
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bar2350_comcast_net
13 years ago
Do the flowers from the elephant garlic make a pretty flower arrangement in a vase of water?
seysonn
13 years ago
I have had leeks scapes before. Leeks and EG are close relatives.
Cut the stem when they are getting to curl. You can use them just like green onions/scallios. If you have alot of them, cut them into 1/4"(or whatever length you want) and freez them.I still have some in my freezer from last year.
Marnelg
12 years ago
I recently made pesto from garlic scapes....just follow your favorite pesto recipe and substitute scapes for basil. Yummy!
jerrilyndelaney
8 years ago
#1 yes, cut the scape/ flower off just above the top set of leaves.

#2 Harvest them this year if you want nice bulbs, because if left in ground, each clove will send up a shoot next year coming up in a multiple clump.

#3 I would replant rounds in the fall or cure them and use them in cooking. A round will slice up nicely for an excellent pizza topping or roasted with chicken.

I have grown many kinds of garlic over the years. The scapes on true garlic varieties will curl. However, on elephant garlic, they grow straight.

My nick name is Grandma Garlic :)
mav72
8 years ago
bar2350_comcast_net, I think they are pretty enough to be used in a flower arrangement. The flower stems arent too thick either.
Donna R
7 years ago
I only have 1 that has a scape...will the seed from this be viable or no? Will it produce true elephant garlic or no?
drmbear Cherry
7 years ago
In 25 years of growing elephant garlic, I have never seen the flowers produce seeds, so I say ignore that comment - just won't happen. Although I cut and eat most of the scapes from my elephant garlic, I always leave a number of them because I like seeing the tall flowers around my garden. You definitely need to dig it up once leaves are yellowing (I usually let about half the plant yellow), and definitely dig from under the garlic to recover all the corms (hard cloves growing around the outside of each bulb) that you can for replanting. That is a really good way to significantly increase your stock of garlic, though it takes a couple of years before they make nice heads. I always store the garlic in a cool place (essentially in the house with AC) once it is dry and cured a bit, and I wait until the fall, mid-October here in Z7, to replant. The great thing about elephant garlic is that it lasts through the winter very well.

Elephant Garlic scape....what do I do?

neohippie

Comments (10)

garliclady

vmi1991

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