Wednesday I got home from work, changed clothes, pulled Jo away from her computer and headed out to harvest our garlic scapes. When you grow what is called hard neck garlic there is a yummy bonus. Ron calls it a Two-ferer. The scapes are a flower stem that garlic plants produce before the bulbs mature. They can be used in so many ways, even eaten raw if you get them young enough. We are still trying to figure out exactly when we should harvest them. Some say before they start to curl, but other sites show them all curled up. That is one of the problems with the internet. Everyone has their own opinion and does things differently. Sometimes it is information overload.

Ron had left instructions that now was the week to get them all picked. Before they straightened out and became too tough to use. He, of course was nowhere to be found when it came to getting this done. He is the one who ordered the garlic last fall and ended up with enough for four beds of the stuff. Since the day we dropped all those cloves into the dirt and covered it all with straw, all he has done is the occasional weed pulling. Jo and I spent just over an hour actual harvesting, but we also had to chop them into small pieces. Since our plan is to make lots of pesto and freeze it, we chopped up 10 scapes at a time and bowled them up.

This weekend will be pesto making time. Our first attempt at pesto was 3 years ago and that was interesting. I didn’t have a actual food processor and tried using the tiny food processor thingy Mom gave me years ago. So did not work. Ended up with a very chunky but tasty spread. But not really pesto. That was the final push I needed to get myself a proper food processor. We have to buy some spinach and basil before I can get going. While we do like the pesto made with just scapes, adding herbs or other greens gives it a whole new flavor. Ron tried growing spinach the first two years but did not have much luck. It bolted so fast. And my attempts at basil have not been good either. No matter how early I get it started inside, once it is planted outside things don’t go so well. This year we had a hard frost and even though I covered everything up, I still took a hit. Will have to figure it out eventually as Ron has long term plans for us to make and sell organic frozen pesto. Remember, he sold this farm idea to me with much talk of growing garlic. Such a liar.