Kitchen Garden Forum

OK be prepared that I am likely to be asking something really stupid, but I blame my brain for over thinking constantly!

One of my Elephant garlic sent up a flower stalk & being so huge I hedged my bets & dug it up in case like onions I got a big stalk in the centre so would loose lots or all usable bulb. I got lucky & although a stalk through the middle, the bulb is huge so lots to grate & freeze, but also lots of tiny cloves attached outside. Now these are too small to survive over winter planting, but wondered if I could pot these onto get bigger during the warmer months to plant for next years crop or will they just bolt?

I'm thinking if this plant hadn't bolted these cloves would be bigger & what I would be planting next year but how does bolting affect these baby ones?

In my experience they don't go "useless".
I've had solid uncloved ones after they got smothered by borage, couldn't find them at harvest but they volunteered in spring.
Even small cloves have gone large the following year.
Love elephant garlic!

Some have flowered and died, but the spent clove was surrounded by new cloves.

Afternoon Westi, Elephant garlic send flower spikes up at this time of the year, so quite normal….(I think they call them scapes and can be used in cooking), so just snap them out….

I reckon Sally Wright gave one of her very well written replies about them, a while back.

But how do you use Elephant Garlic in cooking..?It isn't a true garlic but, I understand,belongs to the onion family and very mild in taste.I grew it many years ago and the only use I could find was to grate or slice it into a salad or roast it with the Sunday joint as a side dish.I have never seen a recipe with Elephant Garlic as part of the ingredients.

Hi snooky!
When freshly harvested it is stronger but it looses this fairly quickly but I continue to use it in stews, soups & stuff. It is lovely oiled, wrapped in foil & roasted then spread on toasted bread or mixed in with sour cream or mayo to make a dip, added to soups & sauces or just the whole big squishy clove as a side for BBQ'd meat for folk to spread on top of their meat as wished.

Hi peter!
Thanks for the feedback on your experience. Those little puppies will live on.

Hi OH!
Oh yes it was Sally Wright that steered me to them in the first place! I only panicked because this one's stalk was so much thicker, & I did just nip them off some of the others.

Cheers all! I wasn't totally stupid then!