From: songbird@anthive.com   
      
   T wrote:   
   > On 9/27/22 15:33, songbird wrote:   
   >> i don't trim scapes.   
   >   
   > Everyone else tells you to do that.  How   
   > did you figure out they were blowing hot air?   
      
     i try to keep things simple and think in terms   
   of total yeild and have different goals than just   
   the bulb size.  i get pretty large cloves (about   
   the size of my thumb) anyways so it must not make   
   that much of a difference for the variety i grow.   
      
     nothing wrong doing it other ways, just not a   
   thing i worry about.   
      
     if i weren't able to give them away then it   
   would be another source of garlic for eating -   
   one form or another it's edible.   
      
      
   > Am I hurting mine by cutting them off?   
      
     if you're cutting the scapes off early i don't   
   think it hurts anything - to me the issue would   
   be more if you were leaving them to grow more   
   and then cutting them off since then that would   
   be a wasted leaf/stem that meant the energy   
   could have gone the other direction instead.   
      
      
   > I do not cut off my white onions scapes, but   
   > rather harvest them for seeds when the seeds   
   > turn black.  Does not seem to hurt them at all.   
      
     onions that have flowered often have an odd   
   shape to the bulb and a lot of people don't like   
   that for cooking prep.  i just work around it.   
   this season i had a nice red onion bulb that was   
   off to the side of the flower stalk.  it was just   
   as large as most of the onions i get so we used it   
   for cooking.  no problem with me at all.   
      
      
   > I have thought of harvesting my garlic seeds, but   
   > do seeds not take two years to mature into bulbs?   
      
     longer than that for larger garlic bulbs (3-5yrs).   
   as you've seen when you start from little scapes or   
   bulbs it takes time to get bigger to get to the bigger   
   bulbs and cloves.  if you keep eating all your   
   biggest cloves you'll not get bigger bulbs the next   
   season.   
      
     the reason to plant scapes or small cloves would   
   be to increase your overall plant count as much as   
   possible in a short period of time.  i've done it,   
   it works, i've had thousands of scapes growing and   
   eventually many of them got harvested after some   
   years, but since i'd scattered them in alfalfa and   
   birdsfoot trefoil it was tough to get them all out   
   of there later...   
      
      
     songbird   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)