Garlic Flowering

[BarriedaleNick]

It appears that my garlic is flowering!
ABout 60 planted out in Oct last year and all looking quite healthy albeit with a bit of rust but I just noticed yesterday that the start of a flowering head was forming.
I have never seen garlic flower so...

Do i just leave em be and take them as normal - will they be ok?
Or do I take the flower stalk off?
Cheers in advance!

[BarriedaleNick]

[goodlife]

You can cut them off if you wish and eat them..or you  can leave them..I never bother cutting them off..
They will not be flowers as onions have..you'll find that they will open and have inside lots of little bulbils.."mini garlic". You can collect them and if you have spare area for them sow them like you would with seeds..(read=just chuck them) and let them grow..next spring you  can use the green growth as you would use chives..but with strong garlicky taste... ;) ;D
You can use the bulbils to get new garlic bulbs but it would take 3 years for to get them into desent  size.

[Stevens706]

Last year I cut mine off, do it as close to the flower head as you can to prevent leaving a hollow tube behind which will allow water into the bulb - seemed to work.

[goodlife]

Those 'flower heads' called scapes, if removed, in some garlic cultivars can increase the size of the harvested bulbs. With mine I haven't noticed any difference wether I do remove them or not. But as I grow that much of them..I find it too labot-intensive for the bother.
If you are going to eat your scapes cut them just when they are emerging and before they have curled down....that's when they are most tender stage.
Bulbils can be dried and crushed into a powder...Tip! ;)

[BarriedaleNick]

Thanks y'all!!

Just one question.

If Garlic doesn't flower how does it "breed"? - are there never any true flowers on garlic?

[Tee Gee]

The common name for the flower known as Allium is 'Flowering Garlic'

So if you let your garlic flower you would get something like this but necessarily this colour.

[chriscross1966]

If Garlic doesn't flower how does it "breed"? - are there never any true flowers on garlic?

Alliums family uses three methods of increase, two of which are vegetative.
1: Pretty much universally the bulb will split in the second year onwards. Vegetative
2: It will flower and set seed. Non-vegetative.
3: It will send up somethign that looks like a flower spike but this will not really flower but will produce bulblet like things. Vegetative.

Pretty much all alliums will use at least two of these and will do the third if put i a position where it has to. Garlic and tree onions don't use flowers much but under some conditions they will set some, generally in amongst the bulblets, from these seed can be obtained for breeding programmes.

chrisc

[BarriedaleNick]

Thanks for that Chris and Tee Gee

[manicscousers]

just eaten some scapes in a stir fry  ;D

[realfood]

Only hardnecked garlics produce a scape. Soft necked garlics do not.