Remember this thing I posted (mixed in with loads of flowers, I know, it got ignored).

Well! It turns out this a called a garlic scape. They are only found on hard-neck garlic. 

I never buy garlic to plant: I shove whatever I bought in the shop into the ground when it gets all growy-green, dried up and inedible, therefor I have never had a clue what type of garlic I was growing. Turns out that over the years I’ve been doing this (except for this beastie), we have only purchased the soft-neck variety for cooking.

It turns out you can eat the scape, too! Google ‘eating garlic scapes.’ How cool is that? 

I won’t eat this one as it would be a paltry meal. I’ll take the other path that says when the scape is less like a snake and more like a stake and standing upright, it is time to harvest. I might split the bulb and make more for next year as I love garlic and some of the recipes out there sound delicious. 

Thank you to Quickcrop.ie for the education in garlic scapes.