Garlic

It is coming along nicely; it is just about time to snip the buds coming up through the middle of the leaves. Any suggestions on what to do with them? I went to a garlic festival last summer and many had pickled them. Others had simply steamed them. I am told they have the consistency of string beans with a hint of garlic.

A friend of mine once inquired why you snip the blossom shoot.

I told him garlic has two ways it can reproduce. First, it wants to propagate with its seeds which will eventually come from the blossom (below right). The second way, and the way in which we all would prefer it to reproduce is through the heads in the ground. By cutting the blossom shoot, the plant puts all its efforts for reproduction into the head of the plant in the ground. Without cutting the shoot, the garlic would produce an inadequate head of garlic. Cutting encourages the growth of this head. Looking at them just now I see I need to get out there and cut them this evening. Maybe I will steam them for dinner. The problem is I have very few ready to be cut.



Just a note for those who know little about garlic, each clove of a garlic head will produce a new head. You plant in the fall, and leave it there to Winter. Garlic is one of the first things up in the Spring, right along with the daffodils and tulips. You harvest garlic sometime in July.