Garlic is one of the best seasonings around, making some of our favorite foods iconic. Who doesn't love garlic bread? Garlic can be grown indoors or outdoors, and one gardener shares some easy tips to help you get a bountiful garlic harvest.
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Kaleb Wyse (@wyseguide) shares gardening, homemaking, and cooking tips on his TikTok channel, and in one video he shows a simple way to ensure your garlic plants grow well.
Wise Guide
If you are growing garlic with a tough stem, you will need to cut off the stems and leaves. Here's why:
♬ Original Sound – Kaleb Wyse
The video explains that one of the big differences between hardneck garlic and softneck garlic is that hardneck garlic grows something called a garlicscape.
Garlic scapes are thin stalks that grow from the center of the plant, and if given the chance, large white or purple flowers will bloom from these stalks.
But, Caleb points out, “You don't want your garlic to flower. When it flowers, it puts its energy into that flower, and you want that energy to go into a beautiful garlic head.”
Wise explains that it's a good idea to cut the garlic stalks when they're curled — in the clip, the stalks form almost a circle — and these stalks can be used to make some really tasty dishes and sauces. In the clip, the creator mentions that he's made a garlic stalk pesto, that you can grill the stalks, or make a compound butter.
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“This is a special gift from garlic,” he says. “Don't throw it away.”
How it helps
Growing crops at home is a great way to save money and time at the grocery store, while eliminating health-damaging contaminants from produce shipped around the world. According to our guide, a $70 gardening investment can save people hundreds of dollars a year on groceries. Garlic may not be the most expensive item at the store, but the savings add up and can help your budget.
According to Indexbox, garlic prices are also on the rise, increasing by nearly 2% each month from August 2022 to August 2023. Inflation has been a hot topic for the past few years, putting a strain on the budgets of families and households.
In mid-June, the Associated Press reported that “food prices rose just 1 percent over the past 12 months but are still about 20 percent higher than they were three years ago.”
Gardening and growing crops are not only good for your wallet, they're also a fun and useful pastime with positive health and mental benefits — and these gardening tips will inspire you to get outside and start growing some crops.
What everyone is saying
Those who commented seemed to be big fans of garlic sprouts.
“We're calling this our first garlic harvest!” one person wrote.
“I just harvested it last night!” said someone else.
Meanwhile, another commenter learned something new and wrote, “I didn't know that, thank you.”
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