Garlic in the Home Garden: Removing Scapes

[music] Man 1: Hi. My name is Dave Fuller with the University of Maine Cooperative Extension. Today we're going to talk about garlic in home garden and a little bit about removing the scape. And why garlic is so important to home gardeners is the value of the crop. Retail prices for garlic range from $12 to $20 a pound depending on the type and the size. So you can see it has quite a bit of economic importance and possibility for the State of Maine. We're back in the garlic patch that we planted last October. Things are looking pretty good. We've kept the weeds down. The mulch has helped out a lot with that. We did a little bit of side dressing with soybean meal to give it some nitrogen to grow a nice, big top. Then the next stage that we're looking at is whether or not to remove the scape. But before we talk about that let's talk about the two basic types of garlic. There's a soft neck and a hard neck. The soft neck doesn't produce a flower scape and the hard neck does. Remember that garlic is not grown from seed but it's from vegetative propagation. So we plant a clove and get a bulb. With hard neck we plant a clove, get a bulb, and then we get this thing called a scape which is a flower stalk, just fairly immature at this point. It's only about half grown. There's always a lot of debate with gardeners and farmers, do we remove this flower stalk or not? The idea is that if we remove it then the bulb will be larger and with garlic selling from $12 to $20 a pound it makes sense to have a larger bulb. In fact, we at the University of Maine Cooperative Extension have been doing research on the effects of scape removal. Early research, we're only year one into it, has shown that the bulbs are from 17 to 48 percent larger if you do remove the scape. And the storage ability isn't really any different if you've removed it or not too. So we're looking here at the German Extra Hardy garlic which is a stiff neck variety. It grows a scape. A scape, again, is a flower stalk that comes up, basically comes out of the center of the plant. And as it keeps growing it curls, it grows taller, it uncurls, and finally is finished off as five to six feet tall. At the very top you have something called an umbel. In that is a bunch of small propegals called bulbils from which you could grow garlic. It takes about three years to grow it, so most people don't grow it that way. So in removing this this is the umbel and we basically just want to cut it off behind that. You can either cut it or just snap it like that. When it's picked young like this it's very tender, it's good in stir fries. I know people who have made pesto from it. It can be pickled. And some people use it in decorations when it's a little bit earlier because of the curlicue. It's very interesting. Regardless, if you let it grow to its full height, don't let those bulbils stay in the garden because they'll act as weeds. There are about 100 to 150 bulbils per head. That's a whole lot of weeds if you don't want them growing there. The question is when to harvest the garlic scape. Basically as soon as it comes out of the center of the plant and we can see this bulbil body which is going to be forming. That's a good time to pick it early on in the stage. We can just snip it like that or you can cut it. At that point this can be used for pesto, stir fries. I know people have pickled it and it makes good pickles. It's quite tasty. But remember to leave a few scapes on so you can see that full development. It's a very interesting botanical wonder and I always leave a few in my garden just to watch them, it's fun. So home gardeners and farmers especially can benefit from growing garlic because of the very strong price that it commands. It makes good sense. If you have any questions you can contact us at the University of Maine Cooperative Extension with questions about growing garlic. [music]