The scapes are ready!
To let it go to seed, to not let it go to seed... that is the question 🙂
Since my theme this week is talking about plants going to seed.. heres another one. Garlic! Like I said In a previous post a plants sole purpose is to produce seed. When the seed is being produced much of the plants energy goes into the seed and then it dies down. When garlic matures you will get a seed head starting to form on the top, this is called a scape. IF You don’t take the scapes off then all of the energy continues to go into producing the seed which then takes the energy away from producing a larger bulb of garlic for you to harvest. So you want to take these off to promote growth in bigger garlic bulbs.
Scapes are yummy and resemble onion or scallion tops and great to use in salads or even cook with your meat in place of onions. Last year I tried a bunch of different things with them by making a seasoned salt, infusing them in my balsamic vinegar that I use for salad dressing and even a yummy garlic pesto that I made.
These were all good ways to use the scapes, but my favorite was the pesto! Definitely making this again this year. I found that if I froze individual scoops and then bag them all together it was a great way to store them in the freezer. I like cooking with it in many different ways but my favorite was on top of the meat in the oven, like chicken breast. 
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