Scapes: When to make The Cut.

A picture says a thousand words, so I'll use both here, and hope that I am not getting too wordy. Porcelains are the most fun to watch, and most Ontarians are familiar with them, so that is the example I've chosen:

 The Porcelain scapes here are newly emerged, just starting to loop, and are not yet ready to be cut. 
Note how slender the whole scape is at this point. The nascent umbel, (where the scape is white and the spathe attaches to the flowerstalk) is barely burgeoning with growth. As the scape matures, and the bulbils and flowers become more developed, the umbel swells inside the spathe, and for the varieties that do not coil, this is the way to tell when they are mature enough to cut. You can also tell by the flowerstalk: at first it is very tender, and then it becomes more fibrous and stiff. 
 Cutting too soon stalls the root and underground stem in their effort to push energy up into the plant. It causes the leaves to dry down a little earlier than they otherwise would, and it leaves the cloves with less quality, so that they will not keep as well in storage.   You see, all plants go through stages, and at this point in its life, the energy in a garlic plant is expanding, building, and travelling upwards. Later, in the last days of July, or whenever it starts to dry down, a garlic plant's energy is contracting, and travelling down to the bulb. That is when all of this spring/summer energy returns to the bulb (the engine of the plant), and rapidly fills out the cloves. The energy that was going to the umbel becomes stored energy in the clove. If you cut the scape too soon, you shorten the plant's energy cycle. 
But you do need to cut, otherwise the plant has two "reproductive nodes" where energy is going, and the divided energy may not be as sufficient as you want it to be for the bulb size. Especially on Porcelains, and any of the other varieties that put out a tall flowerstalk and tons of bulbils and flowers.   

                                        

This is a perfect, double loop, pretzel shape. 

We see this shape on Porcelains, Rocamboles, Glazed Purple Stripes and sometimes Marbled Purple Stripes. This is a fine time to cut, especially if you want to eat the scapes, or if you are really worried about your soil fertility, and do not want the scape to take any more energy away from the bulb. 

Make your cut a few inches above the last leaf.

If you look closely, there is something strange and wonderful about the Porcelain plants in this picture.

Leave the scape past the pretzle shape, and it starts to unwind. It is not too late to scape at this stage. In fact, I would call this perfect timing, because I am not concerned about eating the scape, and I want that flowerstalk nice and developed. Once, years ago, we cut our scapes too soon, and the stalk shrunk, leaving a hole in the top of the plant for rain water to run in.
Murphy's law, it was a very wet season that year. 
We lost plenty of garlic to neck rot.  

 Porcelains unwinding further... 
It is now getting quite late to cut them.
This all happens within a matter of days,
so it is important to keep and eye on them 
after they are coiled.

Porcelains take many shapes as they prepare to straighten out.
The thing is, you may not be too late if you see this in your garden,
I have harvested large bulbs from plants that were allowed to
completely mature with the scape on. I used them as show bulbs
for the Stratford Garlic Festival. 
Or, if you want to try bulbils, you can leave a few of these on to mature.
Just be careful that they do not plant themselves all over your garden. 
If you are not up to planting bulbil yet, you can always use them as garlic mints.
Happy chewing! 

Rocambole, Glazed purple Stripe, and off in the distance, a few tall Porcelains. 
If you haven't seen it before, this is what it looks like when you let things go. 
Luckily I have the excuse that I am saving these bulbil heads for seed. 
It had nothing to do with inattention....

Rocambole scapes ready to be cut.
Be very careful about leaving any cut scapes lying around, 
because they can finish putting on bulbils, even after 
they are cut. Rocamboles are especially good at this,
 the bulbils develop really fast, and then, look out for next year!

 

Marbled Purple Stripes are not totally loopy!
But they usually do make a full circle, some other
varieties do not. I'd be cutting this one very soon.

Purple Stripes. 

It is rare that they do any more looping 

than this, so it is important to develop a

 feel for how mature the scapes of each 

variety look at different times.

These Purple Stripes will be scaped very soon.