I cut my scapes a couple of weeks ago, dcarch. I still haven't figured out what to do with them. I didn't care for the pesto, Elery ate a couple of them grilled, they just got hard when I chopped them up and added them to onions to caramelize. I finally dehydrated them and will use them in soups and such, but I can't figure out one thing to do with them fresh that we actually like. I got this many, I have 150 garlic plants, they'll come out of the ground in just a couple more weeks.

Spring is definitely gone. My asparagus is making ferns, the lettuce has bolted and it's been 90+ for over a week. Ugh. The beans have tiny little green beans on them, though, so another week or so we'll have the first picking, probably the first couple of zucchini in a day or two. And I picked my first handful of raspberries yesterday!

Annie

Mine are past--in fact I dug my garlic a couple of days ago--but I often saute cut up scapes in a very hot pan, almost charring, and then add greens of almost any type. When I have scapes, I have senposai and gailan, pretty unusual greens but commonplace in my garden and two of my favorites.

They're also great in soups and bean dishes. And I've also diced them into salads.

I don't have any of those but boy, oh boy, the roof rats that are in my city are already getting into the tomatoes, even the green ones! I think they might be hanging out in my neighbor's orange tree. Wish the neighborhood cats would hang out in my yard.

I've been eating mine raw this year. So tender. I test them in the garden and pick if not woody. Is it variety or climate?. A couple years ago they were awful and woody right out of the ground. First early curling.

I do know it is said that you should harvest them young. Not my experience. It seems to be the specific years climate.

Like Annie, I'm well ahead of you, dcarch! Here are my scapes for the year -- I have small gardens and 1/4 of my crop is soft-neck. :) I decided to rough-chop and blanch mine, then I used some in an omelette and froze the rest. I loved them in an omelette, Annie! Bet they'd be great in scrambled eggs too.

We've had hot and dry (no rain) conditions for weeks and that's VERY unusual for us. Lawns have been dead since early June, so I've been watering something in my gardens every day. I'm hoping we'll get a ton of rain from the tropical system that's moving in tonight.

ETA: My early tomato start experiment worked, because I'm picking tomatoes already. I picked my first two crookneck squash the other day, and the first of my cherries where ready to pick last week. I finally remembered to pick my peapods yesterday -- I think this variety is Oregon something-or-other, and it's my favorite of all the snow peas I've tried.... even very good if it's forming baby peas. :)

Bad weather this year. Garden productivity has been disappointing so far..

But black berries are doing great.

dcarch

My garden is actually looking promising, I think because I was off work all spring and had some time to put into it. I've had a few bad years. My garden is later than most people's so beans and squash are still small, tomatoes are just blooming, but everything came up really well. Strawberries are going nuts and raspberries and blueberries are loaded.

I just cut my scapes, only about 75 plants this year since the @%*)^ voles got 450 bulbs winter before last. At least I was able to salvage or replace most of my favorites. We do like scape pesto so what I don't toss into frittatas or something will go for that. Grilling them didn't do much for me, and neither did pickling them, although they looked really cool in the jars.

KatieC, I tried pickling them too, but they were not well received here either. You are right, they did look cool, though.

PM, extremely hot and dry here too, I got half the hay from my fields that I got last year, I'm going to have to buy some to get through the winter and will definitely have to slaughter beef in the fall, I won't be able to feed them. It finally rained last night, first time in 3 weeks. We need more, of course, but it was nice to get that much. The lawns and fields are all brown and we've been running sprinklers on the garden daily.

I didn't think of omelettes, Elery would probably like that. I like my eggs soft so I seldom eat omelettes/frittata/quiche, but Elery does regularly. He could have a garlic scape and hot pepper omelette and he'd probably love it. Mother looks at his breakfast daily and says "yuck", LOL, so that would probably tip her over the edge. (grin) He's started eating breakfast before she wakes up!

sleevendog, I was told to cut them when they began to curl, so that's what I do. You may be right about the weather, mine are usually hard and woody, and the ones that I sauteed with onions just turned into little hard pieces of stick.

Annie