Hi all I'm a first time garlic grower. I planted my cloves last fall and they survived the winter (Vancouver). Now I'm wondering about harvesting some of the green stalks to eat fresh....I believe they are called scapes. I've heard conflicting stories of whether or not this will result in smaller/undeveloped bulbs, or whether the stalks will re-grow. I was planning on harvesting the bulbs in mid-summer. Anyone have experience with this? Thanks CBrinkerhoff
Scapes are involved with inflorescences customarily. I wouldn't cut leaves from bulbs I wanted to size up later.
On the hard necked variety the scape is the curly seed pod (before flowering) I snip mine off and they are great in stir-fry. I've also seen the scapes sold in jars (processed) at garlic festival booths, farmers markets, etc. I've also snitched a few leaves (not all from the same plant) to spice up hamburger patties, with no apparent harm to the bulbs.
You'd have to run an organized comparison to see if reducing foliage affected bulb size. Something like taking a batch and splitting it into two groups of multiple plants, clipping the one and not the other, then weighing all the bulbs at harvest to see if there was a consistent size difference between the clipped plants and the ones that were not. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&...OxtPXaAQ&sa=X&oi=glossary_definition&ct=title
I always thought the scapes are the flowering buds, not the leaves. It's the bud that I see at farmer's market, not the leaves. You would want to cut off the flower buds regardless so the plant can concentrate its energy on the bulb.
