The garlic scape is developing a flower bud, and you are wondering What to Do if Your Garlic Flowers. Here’s what to do!
Allium sativum, or garlic, is grown for its bulbs. This garlic bulb has remarkable culinary and medicinal properties, and it also produces flower stems in some hardneck varieties. What will follow next depends heavily on what you want from your garlic. But, first things first.
Is Garlic Still Good After it Flowers?
Flowering is common in hardneck garlic varieties, but softneck ones do not flower–there might be rare occurences, but it isn’t likely. The scapes on hardneck ones can typically be spotted between late spring and early summer. This is a natural process wherein a plant tries to produce seeds and perpetuate itself.
So, how do you identify these? They look like long green stems shooting out from the bulbs, and this cylindrical form separates them from flat, strapped garlic leaves.
If the scapes bloom, the plant diverts its energy toward the flower’s growth, negatively impacting bulb size and quality. Here’s what to do to avoid this.
What to Do if Your Garlic Flowers?
1. When Growing Garlic for Flowers
Some people grow garlic for flowers, as they impart a unique taste to dishes. Flowers taste milder than buds and can be pickled or blended into dishes.
Flowering also leads to bulbs, which you can harvest to grow more garlic plants. So, if you are growing garlic for flowers, just let them bloom for some time. You can harvest them for culinary purposes or leave them to mature for seed collection.
They are a delicious addition to pesto and salads and can be sauteed in butter and olive oil as a side dish. They offer a mild garlic flavor to cuisines.
2. When Growing Garlic for Bulbs
On the other hand, if you’re growing garlic for bulbs, garlic flowering will impact the quality of the bulbs. The plant’s energy will be focused on flower stems, which will lessen the yield and hamper the size and quality of the bulbs. In such cases, here’s how to remove them.
The best practice would be to cut the scapes as soon as they form a full curl to allow the plant to focus on bulb development. You can remove them by hand or with sharp shears and scissors. Just sever them from their juncture with the leaves.
Cutting can stress your garlic plant; therefore, monitor the plant closely afterward. Leave the bottom 6 inches of the stem, as doing it wrong can damage the nearby leaves.
Do You Harvest Garlic Before or After It Flowers?
You harvest garlic before it flowers. If the flowers grow too much, the bulbs will be less flavorful and slightly smaller in size.
You can identify the right time to harvest when about 40% of the leaves have turned yellow, and the plant looks partially green. This will typically occur between 7 and 8 months for the hard neck varieties. In soft-neck garlic, this period will happen after 8 to 9 months. Harvesting at this time will lead to better taste and storage life (soft necks are always better for long-term storage).
Select a dry day and use a garden fork to loosen 6 to 8 inches of soil. Gently pull the bulbs from the ground without removing their stalks. Now dust off the soil and hang them in shaded areas for about four weeks. After curing, trim the roots and tops to around 1/4 inch and store them in mesh bags.
Note: If your garlic plants have already started to flower, don’t worry–you can still remove the flower stalks (scapes) to divert energy back into bulb production.
How to Stop Garlic Flowering for the Future
The short answer is that you can’t stop it entirely. Most hard-neck garlic varieties naturally produce flowering stalks in late spring or early summer. This phenomenon occurs one month before harvest. You have to observe before it turns into a full-grown garlic plant flower and act fast.
Keep an eye on your garlic for flower stalks in mid-to-late spring. If you notice any green stems with small budded tips, pluck them gently from their base using clean and sharp scissors.
Try to do this when only one or two curls are formed. It will allow the plant to redirect its energy from seed and flowers to bulb growth, eventually resulting in flavorful bulbs with longer shelf lives.
You can also choose garlic varieties with fewer chances of flowering, such as Purple Stripe, Spanish Roja, Chesnok Red, and Italian White.
