Growing Garlic

This post has no point. I am just ridiculously excited about my garlic. 

Last year about a week after Halloween I planted garlic cloves. I simply dug tiny holes the depth of my finger and tossed them in there. I put some compost over them and then forgot about them until spring when they magically appeared as little plants.

I left the garlic and their little flowers alone until I found out while at the Green City Market that you are supposed to eat the flowers! They're good ground into pesto. Called scapes, they are actually the seed of the plant. In fact, it's good to remove them from the plant so it places more energy into the bulbs in the ground. So I went home and trimmed my scapes, made some pesto and cut up others to serve with green beans. This was all very exciting for me.

Then, late July, early August the plants died. At this point I pulled some of the bulbs and I was amazed. What had started as a single clove of garlic had become actual heads of garlic. Except these were fresh and juicy. Wonderful even.

The moral of this story? Talk to your local farmers when you go to these markets. They are often eager to teach you how to grow your own. It might even be easy, fun and delicious!