Last Updated on October 15, 2024 by Suttons Horticultural Team
Garlic is a bulb-producing vegetable loved by allotmenteers and home growers alike. But did you know that it also produces an edible flower, called a ‘scape’? Find out more about scapes and what to do with them in our quick guide below.
In the meantime, browse our full range of garlic bulbs for inspiration.
What is a garlic scape?
Image: Shutterstock/Mikhail_Nau
Hardneck varieties of garlic produce a flower like any other vegetable, and this is known as the ‘scape’. Popular hardneck varieties include garlic ‘Eden Rose’, ‘Carcassonne Wight’ and garlic ‘Flavor’.
You can identify the scape by looking for a long green tendril rising up out of the growing part of the bulb. This is cylindrical, unlike the leaves which are flat and straplike. Immature scapes often have a bump in the middle or at the end of the stalk where the developing flower head is hidden. Look out for scapes on your garlic plants from late spring to early summer.
What should you do with your garlic flower?
Image: Shutterstock/AMV_80
If you’re growing your garlic to produce large and strongly-flavoured bulbs, be sure to remove your garlic scapes as soon as they appear and definitely before they flower properly. The flower takes energy away from the developing underground bulb, but it won’t detract from the flavour unless left to fully open and mature, so don’t worry too much if you miss a couple.
Scapes are edible, with a milder taste than the garlic bulb itself. Add your young scapes to salads, or treat them like you would a garlic bulb or wet garlic. Pick them young, while the flower is still concealed in the bud, so they’re tender. They’re delicious fried with butter, salt and pepper, or in a pesto.
Garlic scapes last for around three weeks in the fridge after cutting. They’re not readily available in the supermarket, so growing your own garlic is the best way to get your hands on this tasty bonus crop.
We hope you enjoy your garlic scapes! Read our garlic growing guide for more information and advice.
Lead image: Garlic ‘Carcossonne Wight’ from Suttons
Close. So close, and yet not completely correct information. The “scape” is not a flower, but as GD said, a stem. What grows on top of the scape…well that’s not a flower exactly either, but a flower cluster called an umbel. Within the umbel grow bubils and flowers. Many people think the bubils are garlic seed, but they are not. The bubils, if planted and grown for 1 to 3 years, depending on the variety, will produce clones of the garlic they grew on. Growing between the bubils are the true seed flowers of the garlic. If you tease the bubils out carefully after flowers appear, cut the scapes and put several of them in a glass of water under light you MAY get some true seed. The difference is that the seed will be cross pollinated from whatever garlic was grown. So, if you have more than one variety, you may get a whole new variety. These seeds are only successful about 10-15% of the time.
Also, leaving the scape on to become an umbel does not result in a smaller garlic bulb, or fewer cloves. However, in my experience, the garlic where I have taken the scapes for eating mature sooner than those with the scape left on. In my small garden this doesn’t matter as I can harvest at two different times. For commercial production this is not practical. If you harvest everything at once, then yes the bulbs with the scapes clipped will be bigger, but only because the others weren’t left to mature.
I let my garlic scapes go completely to flour so that I could plant the little tiny baby garlics, but it’s been a couple months since I harvested them and they’re dried out, can I still plant them?
I picked my garlic around 3 weeks ago with the intention of storing it. My allotment neighbour pointed out that they’ve all flowered and have a green scape. Does this mean they can no longer be stored long term? He said they’re now only good for ‘green’ garlic, ie eating now only
Thank you for the advice
Thank you for your information.
Ok, I can tell you that the flower stems are called ‘scapes’ and you should definately cut them before they flower or your garlic bulbs will be smaller. And they do taste lovely! It is my first year at growing them and trying them out so it was all very exciting!
I was under the impression they were milder than the garlic itself but mine certainly were not!! I also found that if you took the outer membrane off before you chopped it, it was much less chewy! We used it to make garlic bread several times the week we cut them, plus added some raw to a big salad and threw them into a stew/casserole with great results. Really nice to have a crop before the actual garlic gets pulled!
You can also chargrill them whole apparently like asparagus but mine were so strong I am not sure they would have been edible for most people done that way!