Harvesting the Garlic Scapes (and what I realized)

We harvested the last of the garlic scapes this weekend, and now I'm so excited about the coming garlic harvest.

This year is the first time we've grown garlic. Well, I guess technically we started growing them last year.

For anyone not familiar with growing garlic, the cloves get planted in the fall - late October/early November here in Ontario. In the early spring, just after the snow has finally melted, the little shoots of green start making an appearance, and by late June the scapes have made their loop-da-loop and are ready to be harvested.

Here's the thing about the garlic scapes...they're delicious in their own right (I love roasting them and using them in a homemade pesto) and if you leave them they'll flower. If you leave them even longer, they'll produce seeds that you can eat, or replant. (It takes a few years to grow garlic from seed, FYI.)

But, the flowering scape is really just the show. The magic, IMO, is in the bulb. Yes, I'm the girl who doubles the garlic in every recipe.

It's the opinion of gardeners (more learned than me) that removing the scape helps redirect energy back into the bulb. Improving the size, quality, and flavours.

You've got to cut back, in order to free up energy for where it's needed most.

This was yet another garden revelation for me.

We're the gardeners of our mind, body, and spirit, and we need to make wise choices about where our energetic resources are going.

We could spend all of our time & energy producing a big show, or we could prune back to divert our energy into the things that matter most to us.

Maybe the results aren't as showy, but the quality will definitely be better.

Until next time,

Namaste.

p.s. If you're looking for a little help figuring out what to prune and what to keep in your own life, click here.  Set up a FREE clarity call and see if we're a good fit for my 1:1 Align + Empower Coaching package.