It's Scape Picking Time!

What on earth, you might ask, is a "scape"? An impromptu one-day vacation or a newfangled vegetable from a far-flung land?

Anyone who's been trawling the farmers' markets over the last couple of years, or who belongs to a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture), will know exactly what I'm talking about – but for those unfamiliar with this edible delight, let me introduce you.

A scape is actually the flowering stalk of the garlic bulb, so there's really nothing new about it. All that's happened is that many of us are buying locally grown vegetables – and the local farmers are bringing their scapes to market with the rest of their crops.

If you've ever found the garlic in your pantry or refrigerator sending up a shoot, that is what would turn into a scape if the garlic were growing in your garden. Most garlic growers believe that removing the curling green shoot increases the size of the garlic yield by concentrating the growing power in the bulbs instead of wasting it on the green stalks and a flower. If you have garlic growing in your garden, now is the time to harvest your scapes.

Garlic is one of the easiest crops to grow, but you're going to have to wait until the fall to get started. Take a bulb and divide it into cloves. Locate a nice sunny spot where the soil isn't too wet and poke each clove about an inch down and 4 inches apart. The traditional time to plant garlic is on the shortest day of the year, but you can plant it at the same time as the rest of your bulbs in the fall.

Early in spring, you'll see green shoots poking up from the soil, and by mid-June the garlic greens will look like any other member of the Allium family, with long green tubular leaves. The long curling flower stalk that suddenly develops is the only way you can tell the garlic apart from your onions or shallots.

OK, so now that you've picked your scapes – or bought a bunch at the farmers' market – what do you do with them? Scape pesto is one of my favorite ways to use this cross between a scallion and garlic. All you need are a few garlic scapes, a handful of pignoli nuts, a blend of grated Parmigiano and Romano cheeses and some olive oil. Chop the scapes in the processor, drop in the pine nuts and drizzle in the olive oil. When you have a consistency similar to hummus or mashed potatoes, put in a bowl and mix in the cheese. Scape pesto is great as a pasta sauce, or as a spread on toasted focaccia -- or you can use it to add a bit of zing to plain hummus. Enjoy!

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