Green Garlic

Green Garlic is garlic grown for the greens rather than for the bulb.

I love my green garlic patch! It produces lots of food with almost no work!!

Plant garlic cloves in an ordinary garden bed in the fall. After a cozy winter sleep greens will emerge in the spring.

These greens can be used like scallions as well as in sauteed meals and even fermented.

When the greens become too coarse to chew they can be harvested and frozen for future soupstocks and bean pots.

Greens ready for freezer

Greens & roots ready for freezer

Chopped, coarse greens in a bean pot.








At a certain point in their growing cycle the stalks get thick and are excellent chopped and sauteed. Like the greens, they are excellent fermented!

A few weeks later come the loopy "scapes" also known as flower stalks. These also make an excellent saute and an equally excellent ferment.

Each element of the green garlic plant has a peak season before the leaves, stalks or scapes become too tough to chew. With practice and taste testing you will get the feel of when to harvest for eating and fermenting and when to harvest for freezing for soups and bean pots.

As your green garlic patch gets bigger, harvest entire plants to keep it to the size you want.

Green Garlic, Fermented!

Green Garlic is garlic grown for the young plant parts rather than just the bulb. Just plant some cloves in the fall and eat them in the following spring/early summer. They don't need optimal conditions yet they give a lot of food.

They are great sauteed and I also love them fermented. Imagine all the benefits of garlic combined with all the benefits of lactofermentation. This is power food!



Recently harvested Green Garlic plants

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Green Garlic Scapes or Flower Stalks




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Green Garlic stalks, cut and ready for fermentation jar



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The jar ready for fermentation period



The white layer is from chopped green garlic bulbs, the light green layer is from the chopped stalks and the dark green layer is from green garlic scapes. I used a horseradish leaf for the leaf layer.



I'll let it ferment for 3 days on the counter and then 2-3 weeks in the fridge.