fall planted garlic - Can warm winter cause early harvest?

[Bmh76]

Just curious about the warm winter temperatures and the garlic I planted in October. I live near Philly, and we are just getting into cold weather now. The scapes on my garlic have been growing quite a bit. Should I still expect a harvest in July like normal or will they mature earlier due to the warm fall/winter? Thanks for any advice.

[rainbowgardener]

I'm confused. You just planted garlic cloves in October and already the plants have scapes?



Scapes are the white bulges at the ends of the stems after the stems start curling like that. They are the flower buds of the garlic and they usually do not appear until close to harvest time.

[Vanisle_BC]

I'm confused. You just planted garlic cloves in October and already the plants have scapes?



Scapes are the white bulges at the ends of the stems after the stems start curling like that. They are the flower buds of the garlic and they usually do not appear until close to harvest time.

I'd assume a confusion of terms here. Personally I think of "scapes" as the more-tender curly top part of the stem including the bud - effectively the whole of the parts shown in your excellent photo. Certainly that's what the local stores sell, as well as what we use, chopped up, in our cooking.

My guess is that bmh76 is using the word to refer to the emergent shoots that appear shortly after planting in the fall.

[Vanisle_BC]

Bmh76: In my zone, (7 - where are you?) fall-planted garlic shoots can grow to several inches before winter. Then they slow down or stop, to grow again in spring. If there's significant frost they survive just fine. Even if they died back I suspect they'd come again.

You can relax, I think garlic is practically bomb-proof! I definitely don't baby mine but if I plant 100 I'll usually harvest at least 95.