Best time to harvest scapes is after they curl, but before they start straightening out. I snap off mine as like asparagus stalks, they will easily snap at the point where the tender part and any woody part meet.

As for whether it's best to harvest them all or leave them depends. Some say the heads will be bigger if you remove them. Others say it doesn't matter. I think it depends on whether you want to use the scapes. If you harvest them, you get a tasty treat. If you don't, they end up in the compost bin.

This year I'm leaving one scape on each of my three varieties to harvest bulbils. I also just read something that said when the earliest scapes stand up again, it's time to stop watering. Tonight I went out and tied a yellow piece of string around the three scapes I'm going to leave on.

I pick my scapes when they are between 12 and 18 inches long. At this stage they are still in curl and quite tender.

My scapes arrived early this year, probably due to the warm winter. Some were nearly ready for snapping when we left for vacation on June 21st, a good week or two early. My neighbor harvested about 400 while we were away, and I picked the remainder yesterday when we returned. The refrigerator is full!

The plants are vigorous with many having stems 1.5" wide at the base. Hoping for some giant bulbs from my Music, Russian Red, and Estonian Red.

Tom

Our scapes are just starting to show, up here you have a hard time giving scapes away seems a shame to throw 45000 or more on the burn pile but that is what we do every year.

What a shame, Henry! I would expect a big market for them in BC, at least in the cities where people aren't growing their own.
Then again, they're such good keepers, you'd think there'd be a market for them somewhere, even if you have to ship away.... :?!?:
With 45,000 you could supply supermarkets across Canada I guess! :surprised: At our market price here, $3 for a bundle of 5, that would be a retail value of ?? $27,000. It's a lot to burn. :?:

There are farmers markets that could be sold at 2 plus hour drive away so 4 plus hour gone from a day makes it not worth the effort going rate had been $3.00 a pound Vancouver would be a better market but at 6.5 hours away it is to far.



[QUOTE=bower;646353]What a shame, Henry! I would expect a big market for them in BC, at least in the cities where people aren't growing their own.
Then again, they're such good keepers, you'd think there'd be a market for them somewhere, even if you have to ship away.... :?!?:
With 45,000 you could supply supermarkets across Canada I guess! :surprised: At our market price here, $3 for a bundle of 5, that would be a retail value of ?? $27,000. It's a lot to burn. :?:[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=henry;646347]Our scapes are just starting to show, up here you have a hard time giving scapes away seems a shame to throw 45000 or more on the burn pile but that is what we do every year.[/QUOTE]

:cry:

[URL]http://durgan.org/2017/June%202017/13%20June%202017%20Garlic%20Scapes/HTML/[/URL] 13 June 2017 Garlic Scapes
Garlic scapes are forming on the hard neck garlic. They are the curly snake like tentacles on which the seed called bulbils form. The scapes may be cut off and eaten. There is a view that removing the scapes makes the garlic bulb larger, but I have seen no evidence of this.
Harvest is usually the first week of July in my Zone 5, but I no longer do this. The scapes are left on and the garlic is allowed to grow until the bulbs start to break the covering, then it is harvested. I have found the bulbs get larger if the scapes are not removed and bursting of the bulb covering in no way reduces the storage life. Seeds (bulbils) are harvested when they form at the end of the scapes. Usually one scape produces numerous (100) seeds.
[IMG]http://durgan.org/2017/June%202017/13%20June%202017%20Garlic%20Scapes/HTML/dsc_7606_std.jpg[/IMG]