Garlic scapes are up, time to harvest

Garlic scapes, the thick stem growing out of hard neck varieties, have been spotted in several community garden plots. I like to write about them to a) let you know they are up, b) remind you to remove them and why and c) what to do with them. In a word - delicious.

Garlic scapes are that curly "whip" that grows up the stem of hardneck garlic. Softneck garlic does not have this whip, and I recently learned that most commercial garlic found in the grocery store is softneck precisely because growers don't have to deal with the scape.

"Deal with?" you ask. If the scape is not removed, the plant will put lots of energy into developing a flower and seed pod, thus leaving less energy for the underground crown which is what we harvest in July. Removing the scape not only helps develop a larger crown of garlic, it's also tasty.

This year I planted more than 100 cloves, which means I have that many scapes to harvest.

Wait until the scapes curl. Harvesting them too early and they'll grow back.

What to do with them:
1) use them as you'd use garlic in any food preparation
2) chop up into stir frys
3) they make a spicy and crunchy addition to salads

What I'm planting right now

This past Saturday was a cool but sunny and dry day. Nothing like the forecast for the next 10 rainy days. So I took advantage of the weather to get some plants and seeds in the ground.

I started by moving the hay off my beds and filling one that had settled quite a bit.

I then planted beet and parsnip seeds, with a few radish seeds sprinkled in the rows. Both beets and parsnips are slow to germinate (but we'll see with all this rain :), so adding a few radish seeds in helps identify the rows and makes for easier weeding.

I covered the beds with remay cloth to help keep them moist, keep birds off and help keep any warmth the soil may take up during these cool days ahead.

I also planted brussels sprouts and kale plants that I started and a few brussels sprouts of a variety I haven't grown before that I purchased from the Mifflin Street Planthouse (just two doors down from our own house!)

Finally, I planted onions (Copra and Redwing), two varieties that are good keepers for storage. I planted them quite a bit closer than the instructions call for because I just don't have a lot of space in my community garden. I think the only downside is I will get smaller onions.

I then put hay between the onion rows, and finished up the day by mulching between the rows of garlic that is up. Last fall we planted 120 garlic cloves and it looks like most of them survived the winter.

Our goal this year is to have enough onions and garlic to use generously with canning this summer, and have enough to last until next year's harvest in July and August. I think we'll make it!

Are you at all concerned about your seeds rotting in the forecasted wet soil?

Analysis of diseased garlic cloves

Last year I wrote about a mysterious "waxy" substance on my harvested garlic cloves. I chalked it up to "oh well, try again next year." We discarded or cut out the waxy parts and didn't use them to plant the 2013 crop.

In July, I harvested the crop and hung them in the garage to dry and cure. In October, I cracked open dozens of crowns to find the fattest cloves for planting the 2014 crop, and to my dismay, I found more of that waxy substance, plus some rotten looking cloves.

This time, I knew who to call, and handed some samples over to Brian Hudelson, senior outreach specialist with the UW-Extension plant disease diagnostics clinic. Each summer Brian pays our community garden a visit and is always interested in seeing dead and dying plants. I thought he'd enjoy seeing these samples.

I received an analysis today, and here's what Brian wrote.

Dear Josh:
I have completed the analysis of the garlic sample that you submitted to the Plant Disease Diagnostics Clinic. I initially showed your sample to Phil Pellitteri, our insect diagnostician, for comment. Phil found evidence of Indian meal moth larvae in the sample. This insect tends to attack stored garlic. Please see the attached fact sheet for details on this insect pest and its management. Phil also found evidence of bulb mites in the sample, but commented that these mites are commonly found in soil and likely invaded your garlic after it had been compromised by other factors.

I subsequently used standard isolation techniques in an effort to recover disease-causing organisms from your cloves. I did recover some Fusarium from the materials that you provided and this fungus can cause clove rot issues on garlic. I am enclosing a photocopy of some information on the disease caused by this fungus. In addition, I believe that part of the problem with your garlic may be something called waxy breakdown, a high temperature-related physiological disorder. I am enclosing a brief description of this disorder as well.

In terms of management, I think the best way to proceed is to simply inspect the cloves you have in storage, and dispose of any with significant blemishes and/or discolorations. If you decide to use any of your cloves to replant next year, be sure to reinspect them prior to planting and use only blemish-free cloves. Also try not to replant in the same area of your garden plot where you had garlic last year.

I hope this information is of help to you. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thanks again for using the Plant Disease Diagnostics Clinic.

In conclusion:

• I did not use any of the waxy cloves for next year's crop. In fact, one species seemed to be particularly affected and we ate or destroyed all those cloves.
• I'm going to put a moth control strip near my garlic.
• I did rotate the garlic into a new bed.

Garlic - you need to plan ahead

Just a quick note that if you intend to plant garlic next year, you need to think about getting garlic seed stock now. Garlic is planted in October, but you need to order your seed stock now! Many places that sell garlic for planting take orders now and deliver in October - but often stop taking orders in early September. There are many vendors, from your local farmers market to mail order nurseries across the country. The one place it's best not to buy from is your grocery store - garlic there is treated not to sprout - except organic garlic.

Garlic, herbs and compost diving dinner

Jay and I put our garden to rest for the year. We spent a beautiful October day in our community garden preparing a bed to plant garlic and harvesting the last of the herbs.

Planting garlic
Last week I prepared a large piece of cardboard according to a wonderful schematic that I learned during my garlic class a few weeks ago. The piece of cardboard was conveniently the width of the bed where I wanted to plant garlic, and I measured out and cut holes in a alternating pattern which facilitated making sure the garlic cloves were spaced evenly.

Practically speaking, however, we found ourselves picking the cardboard up to dig a hole or place the clove and we finally decided that a string stretched the length of the bed with marks at the appropriate spaces would be easier to work with.

I hunted down some bale twine (it's lying all over the garden) and grabbed a black magic marker and tape measure that I always keep in my car and we quickly made a planting guide. Our garlic is five inches apart in rows (I split the difference between the recommended four to six inches), rows six inches from one another.

This year we planted six different types of garlic. I bought four new seed stock, and planted seed stock from two varieties we grew this year. We buried the whole thing in hay and it's now nice to think that something wonderful and green will come up early next spring.

Harvesting herbs
We also harvested a little lavender, most of the rosemary stems, and all of the anise hyssop, and  buried the whole thing in a heavy layer of hay mulch to keep it from freezing and thawing next spring. I have not had much luck overwintering Rosemary indoors or lavender outdoors, and am hoping that this helps. I am pretty sure the winter will kill the rosemary but the lavender has a fighting chance. The herbs went into the dehydrator, and Jay made a tea out of the anise hyssop after dinner. Absolutely aromatic and wonderful.

Compost diving for dinner
When I dropped things off in the compost pile I found a stalk of brussels sprouts. The brussels sprouts were small, I'm sure that's why a gardener threw it away. But what that Gardner did not know is my delicious recipe for cabbage soup that also can use brussels sprout plant leaves. Here's a link to that recipe in case you have cabbage or brussels sprouts that you want to cook up. We made it for dinner. Delicious.

Time to plant garlic - and a garlic problem

A couple of weekends ago Jay and I cleared out our community garden beds. We threw a lot of green tomatoes in the compost pile, but after having processed nearly 50 pounds of green tomatoes into salsa and a wonderful pie filling, I didn't feel too bad about adding some green material (pun intended) to our growing compost heap. Now, ask me about the folks who threw perfectly good red tomatoes in the compost and I have a different thing to say ;)

I'm now ready to do the last bit of garden work before leaving it alone until next spring. It's time to plant garlic! I ordered four new varieties of garlic from Territorial Seed Company,  and am going to plant them and some cloves from the garlic I raised myself this year.

• Duganski (from my seed stock)
• Spanish Roja
• Purple Glazer
• Siberian
• German Red

I bought 8 ounces of each and will plant 30 cloves. This left me with some leftover which I am going to sell to a friend who didn't get her order in time (they're all sold out of the 2012 seed stock). Read more about planting garlic.

So you can imagine my surprise and disappointment when I cracked open some of the biggest crowns I had reserved for just this occasion to discover some of the cloves look diseased, desiccated and somewhat shrunken. I went online to see what it could be, and it appears that what I see is called “waxy breakdown of garlic.”

I took a photo of a healthy looking clove and one of these discolored clothes, and I also found an image online with a similar comparison.

Samples from my stored garlic, discovered Oct. 14 while preparing some for seed. The "waxy" sample on the left, and you can see it starting on the top of the "good" clove on the right.

An image from the Oregon State University Extension.

This article says that there isn't much that can be done about it, but what I want to know is can I eat them? I'm certainly not going to plant these inferior-looking cloves, but I'm distressed that all of this wonderful garlic may be going bad while I'm storing it to be eaten!

Anyone else experience this? Your thoughts? Thanks for your ideas and suggestions.