Scapes

When I was pregnant with Addan,  I tried another business venture.  I had a friend who sold garlic.  She made lots of money from it and thought I could do the same thing :)  (She already had a distributor buying her eggs and chicken so garlic was just another thing he bought when it was in season.)  I  had no clue how much to plant, so I asked my friend for 50 lbs to start with.  Fifty pounds was alot to plant!!  Each garlic has about 5-7 cloves and each clove would be a plant to harvest.  Thankfully the boys helped me plant them all.  We were sure sick of planting by the end of that project.  

The garlic was planted in the fall and started to come up early spring.  In about June the scapes appear.  They're in the center of each plant and are curly with a little bud on the end. (My friend was able to sell those too, restaurants use them in their meals.)  This week our garlic scapes were ready.  Here they are in the garden.

Tim went out and picked all these for me.  He has always said he wants to be a farmer, so I always give him the garden jobs.

The first night, I added them to the stir fry meal over rice.  

I chopped them up, they add a mild oniony/garlic taste. Silas eating his.

Today I used up the rest of the scapes.  I fried them up with onions and butter for the sausages.  They were so yummy!

Mark eating his third one!

The garlic business didn't do too well.  They all came in the same month I had Addan.  I remember sitting outside under a tree,  cutting and cutting the garlics off the stalks with Addan in his seat next to me.  It was an overwhelming project!  Then I had them stored all over the porch.  The damp air made them start to get moldy so they had to come inside.  There were just TONS of them!  So I replanted some (enough to feed our family) and gave tons away.  I was able to sell some at a farmer's market in town but didn't end up doing that too long as it was very difficult with a newborn doing the farmer's market.   From that year since, I do about 100 plants for us.  They last all year for us.  

Had to add this little side story about garlic.   My Mom was just in CT for a week visiting her sister.  This is my Aunt Rosie.  Aunt Rosie's daughter Judy, my cousin, is severely handicapped.  She is a year younger than I am.  While Mom was there, Judy was very upset and crying in pain.  The home health aid told my Aunt she thought Judy had an ear infection.  Judy was in pain all day (it's hard to tell what's wrong with Judy as she can't speak).  Finally my Mom suggested to try garlic.  The two of them gave Judy the garlic in her ear, and almost immediately Judy calmed down.  She was soon making her happy noises.  The home health aid commented the next day how much better Judy was and asked what they did!  Garlic,, good ole' garlic!!