Do onions also get 'scapes'? My onion starts are getting long stalks with little bulb type things on the end. Should I pull them off? Can I eat those? Maybe you have an answer to this one Moorehaven? Thought I'd ask here, seeing as we are on the subject of scapes.

Thanks

Muddy -
To the best of my knowledge, it's pretty much the same with onions, although the eating part I have no idea. I clip the seed heads off my onions when they show up to keep them from self-seeding my growing areas.

I'm betting there is somebody out there who can give us a more "authoratative" answer to your querry.

My opinion on letting scapes grow on onions:

Don't let them grow! Cut them off. If you leave them there, the neck of the onion gets too big and they don't keep. And you risk getting those brown skins in the middle of your onion. I hate that! That's my thought and that's my experience, when I let one grow, just to see what it looked like.

Okay, I hope others chime in.

ok, thanks for the advice, I'll cut them as soon as I can get back out into the garden after all this rain!

I planted a pound of yellow starts and a pound of red, and that was ALOT of onions I'm going to harvest!

Lisaann -
Some folks would say you got "divided" onions because you let your ground get too dry during the growing cycle...

Hey, you're the one who said it would be more fun if I disagreed with you on something....hahaha !!!!

Muddy - just incase you weren't aware of it, your red ones have the shortest storage life, eat them first if you can.

Okay moorehaven,

I beg to disagree!

All the onions that I cut the scape off of were fine. It was only the one that had the scape left on that did that, and they all got the same amount of water, cus they were all there together.

Whatcha think about that, dude?

Hahahaha !!!
This long-haired hippy-type freak thinks it was an anomoly.

....oh, and I said "some folks", but not nessasarily me.

....quarter till high moon.....I gotta get to bed.

Sorry, guys...been missing cuz I've been busy!
(like everyone else, huh?)

So...should I leave those...

"think of them as baby garlics relative to the garlics ability to replicate or clone it's self year after year.They look like scallions because you are still pre-bulb swelling stage; garlic puberty""

...adolescents where they are, separate them, or what?

My friend thought they smelled like onions, but I never planted onions there.

Mmmmmm...eggs, cheese, and garlic teenagers...yum!

.......I cast my vote to leave them alone until the rest are ready to harvest and then do them also at the same time...as they are gonna be small, save as part of your seed crop for next season.....keep in mind you're looking at about 4 years from conception to being sized up enough to a size worth cooking with. The only real value they have is in the learning experiance you're getting as opposed the the culinary value.

Learning experience?

Yep, that's one thing I can say for everyone here, we are not afaid to experiment!

If you ask me, we thrive on it!

Bean -
After I posted my reply, I went out and strolled thru my garlic at sundown. Just calling it a day and taking a deep breath, contemplating the state of the crop. One of the things I was looking at was my sections that contain the sowings of last years garlic seed I have going to help me recover from last year's bug hit. In my mind I'm going thru the process of how I was going to handle it. It suddenly dawned on me that I had told you to do differently than how I was going to handle mine, and yet it was the basicly the same scenerio, just on a different scale.

As I said before, crowding for garlic at this size really isn't an issue. No more than a tray of onion seedlings started from seed. It doesn't become an issue until they start getting some size to them; but that isn't going to be until year 3-4.
Where I'm going with this is that mine won't be removed from where they are happily growing right now. I'm going to leave them in the ground when I harvest the market crop, mulch them good again when I replant next year's crop again this fall, and let them come up again in the same plots next spring. After that I'll evaluate them as to size to decide if I need to harvest and replant them with more spacing.
How's that for a plan...?

Its just about garlic planting time here, I think the shortest day here is June 22nd or there abouts.

Hi scarecrow!

Glad to hear from you!

Yep, we are getting ready to harvest, and you are getting ready to plant. How many cloves are you going to stick in this year? Do you have any pics of your harvest?

My garlic did not survive the winter had several inches of mulch on but nothing this spring.
soo I planted new this spring, well see how we do. the tops came up really quick. hopefully the bulbs underneath are growing at a good clip also.