Garlic — Our Saskatchewan Favourite
by Stacey Tress

Hello, my lovely friends. With gratitude, I am writing again for WHOLifE Journal. My article submission is on garlic, and as I write this, I look out to my gardens, I see it’s almost ready for harvest! (It’s early this year!) I want to share a fun backstory on how we stumbled across this fantastic gem of a garlic, and share some of the health benefits, recipes, and more.

My father-in-law got his first garlic seed, from a friend, who got it originally from Anna Schaab (The Garlic Garden), at least 20 years ago. “The variety is Music, a hard neck porcelain, which averages 4–6 big cloves and is a good keeper,” says Anna. My father-in-law grew his garlic in Swan Plain. Every year, we’d go up to see their big harvest (top harvest was 1,500 heads!) and help plant in the fall. One year after the fall planting, they gave us the remaining cloves, as we wanted to try and grow ourselves, out here in Rhein. In the fall of 2019, I planted about 40 cloves. First scape harvest was July 2, 2020 (according to my Facebook pic on my Garden Therapy Yorkton page), and this 2025 harvest will be 600 heads! Crazy how 40 cloves can turn into 600 heads in six years!

As Anna states, it’s a good keeper! We just roasted five heads in the oven last night (to mash into our pizza sauce), and it’s showing signs of drying out (July 27, 2025). Some say that the Music variety keeps for nine months to a year! My father-in-law attests to the longevity of storage, to keeping it out of sunlight when drying it after harvest, and storing it in a cool and well-ventilated area (re-using old onion bags or something that has ventilation). 

Garlic is a 2-Crop Harvest

First are the scapes. They emerge from the hard neck variety plants in early summer, as curly green shoots. From my understanding, removing the scapes isn’t a crop bonus, but a necessity to encourage bulb growth; unless you want to grow bulbils, which are garlic seed (talk to Anna about that!) Last year we dehydrated most of our scapes and pulverised them (using our VitaMix), into garlic scape powder. The remaining fresh scapes were chopped up finely and cooked with butter to make a big batch of garlic scape butter. Hindsight Tip: we did a big batch (two sticks butter and a whack of fresh scapes) and put it in a leftover ice cream container. This year I portioned it better by using ice-cube trays.

Garlic scapes, compared to the garlic, are milder in flavour (compared to the garlic bulb) but still, IMO, quite potent raw. Personally, I treat them just like a green onion, and add them to any dish I’m cooking, in a similar way. You can eat them raw I know that Anna and I have served them as a tasty summer grilled side addition, and because they are rather “tender,” they do well in soups and stews. They do keep pretty well—some harvests got away on me and I had to just bag ‘em up and refrigerate until a later time permits; it works well in that way, because out here in the Prairie summers, we aren’t making a lot of July soups; save that for September.

Second are the garlic heads. Hard-necked varieties, like the Music variety we grow, are planted in the fall and harvested the following summer, typically, late July to early August (weather pending), when, from my understanding, 2–3 leaves on the bottom are brown, and 4–6 green leaves on the top (although the tops will have browning by this point for sure, but not the whole leaf). My July 2025 harvest is soon, as I’ve got two super crisp brown bottoms, the third isn’t quite there just yet (July 30/25). You can’t just pull garlic out of the ground, as you’ll damage the clove, but rather, use a pitchfork to loosen the soil.

As a humble garlic grower, there’s garlic math. Always planting the best, biggest seed, I must think. How may seed heads am I using? How many do we need over the winter? Are we expanding and growing more? How many are we gifting; maybe selling a few—selling garlic was never my intention, but sometimes being an opportunist can pay off. TBH, I have not perfected this ratio and just go with the flow. I will say we gifted (or bartered) many heads last year and have maybe 30, or so, smaller heads left to use up before the next harvest. We roast a TON of garlic. I use the roasted garlic in everything I am cooking; smeared on bread…to die for. I’m not fancy and just leave the leftover roasted garlic on the counter in the container I roasted in, with intention to use it up, and that delicious garlic infusion oil, over the next few days.

Health Benefits of Garlic Scapes and Garlic Cloves

Garlic Scapes

They contain fibre, but also vitamin C, and provitamin scapes have a nutrient rich profile, that includes diallyl sulfides (which are found in good concentrations in the stalks—that’s the part you snap off to eat). According to Organic Facts, these are directly linked to apoptosis, the programmed cell death of cancerous cells, preventing the spread of these cells. Also garlic scapes can help to flush out the liver and kidneys, thus detoxifying the body. There are also the diuretic properties of this vegetable, which will help the body eliminate waste and toxins rapidly.

Garlic Cloves

Garlic is such a versatile staple out here in the Prairies, and so good for you too! Examples include managing cholesterol, boosting heart health, supporting the immune system, protecting against the common cold, and more. Garlic has a sulphur-containing compound allicin, which acts like an antibiotic (antimicrobial and antioxidant properties), but you need to crush or chop it up to release that full potential. Cooking, or roasting garlic whole adds to its versatility, and to be honest, eating raw crushed garlic isn’t the most palatable way to go about life. Folks on Reddit attest that roasting, or cooking garlic, makes it easier to digest, while keeping many of its beneficial properties.

Either way, you can’t go wrong having this as a staple in your backyard garden. If you’re like many, and don’t have access to your own garden patch, or a community garden plot, Anna from The Garlic Garden travels to locations (Regina, Saskatoon, etc.) to sell her garlic at the markets. For her local Yorkton contact, they are North of Yorkton and email schaabsgarlic@gmail.com.

Growing Tips

So again, I’m not the expert on growing garlic, and it’s just a word-of-mouth kind of share; join Anna’s, The Garlic Garden on Facebook, as folks all over are posting and asking questions—and it’s just a great community to be involved with. But, in my experience, you plant it here in the Prairies, in the fall—and usually for us, it’s around Thanksgiving; cold and dry enough to not sprout, but not so cold they can’t root some before our cold winters. Usually, we aim to plant a good 4–6” deep, 4–6 inches apart (plant too close and fungal rot issues could arise) and we use our biggest harvested cloves to plant. We cover the planted beds with something; could be hay, rough compost—something to nestle them in for winter.

In spring—uncover the beds to let the heat in. Water/weed and go from there until scape harvest. Harvest scapes by pinching off where the scape connects to stalk, when it’s fully curled.

Recipes

Escabeche (Picked Jalepenos)

Ingredients

1 lb jalapeño (and/or serrano if you wish) peppers
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 to 3 medium white or yellow onions, thickly sliced
2 to 3 medium carrots, peeled and thickly sliced
florets from 1/2 small cauliflower (optional)
1 head garlic, cloves separated but not peeled
4 cups apple cider vinegar
2 tbsp kosher salt, or sea salt
2 bay leaves
1/2 tsp dried oregano
4 sprigs fresh marjoram, or fresh oregano, or 1/4 tsp dried
4 sprigs fresh thyme, or 1/4 tsp dried
1 tbsp sugar

Special Equipment

4 to 5 pint-sized glass jars
4 to 5 new canning lids

Method

1. Heat the jars: To heat the jars for canning, place 4 to 5 empty jars on a metal rack in a large, 16-quart canning pot. (Jars must rest on a rack in the pot, not on the bottom of the pot). Fill with warm water at least 1 inch above the jars and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to warm to keep the jars hot and ready for canning.

Wash the lids in hot, soapy water.

Simple Tip!
Because the jars will later be processed in the water bath for 10 minutes, it is not necessary to first sterilize the jars for canning this recipe. You only need to heat them. Do make sure your jars are clean.

If you are planning to eat the escabeche right away and store the jars the whole time in the refrigerator, you can skip the water bath step.

2. Prep the peppers: Wash the jalapeños, leaving the stems intact. Cut a cross in the tip end of each pepper so that the vinegar will be able to penetrate the jalapeños.

3. Fry the vegetables in olive oil: Heat the olive oil in a large, deep skillet. Add the chilies, onions, carrots, cauliflower (if using), and garlic. Fry over medium heat for about 10 minutes, turning them over occasionally.

4. Boil the vegetables with vinegar and seasonings: Add the vinegar, salt, bay leaves, dried oregano, marjoram, thyme, and sugar and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer for 10 minutes.

Make sure the jalapeños are entirely cooked through before canning. You will know they are cooked when they are no longer vibrant green, but a dull, olive green.

5. Pack the jars: Remove the jars from the water bath and set them on a clean towel on the counter. Pack the hot pint jars with the jalapeños and vegetables, leaving 1/2 inch headspace between the top of the liquid and the rim of the jar. Wipe off the rims with a clean towel, set the lids on top, and screw the bands on finger tight.
Process the jars in a hot water bath:

Lower the jars into the water bath. Once the water returns to a boil, process for 10 minutes.

Roasted Garlic

We use a little CorningWare skillet to roast our garlic. Pre-heat oven to 325º–350º F.

Toss as many heads as you can fit or need—and drizzle with olive oil.

Cover with tin foil.

Roast in oven about an hour or so—they start to bleed out/crisp out when overdone. (Your house will smell amazing.)

Pop/smear them out when cooled!

Use the garlic infused olive oil in place of butter in all kinds of savoury dishes.

References
6 Amazing Benefits of Garlic Scapes | Organic Facts
Garlic: Health Benefits and Uses
Allicin: Chemistry and Biological Properties—PMC
Roasted Garlic Health Benefits
Anna Schaab, The Garlic Garden, schaabsgarlic@gmail.com

Recipes
Escabeche Recipe (Pickled Jalapeños)
Roasted Garlic—Stacey Tress Garden Therapy Yorkton

Stacey Tress lives in Rhein, SK, with her husband and two daughters. Owner of Garden Therapy Yorkton, which offers active fermentation kits for purchase (Kombucha, Sourdough, Water Kefir), and fermentation workshops. She is a Holistic Nutritional Therapist (HNT), Young Living Essential Oils Member (#2282633), Permaculture Educator, and holds a Payroll Compliance Professional Designation. To learn more, call 306-641-4239, email: stacey.gardentherapy@gmail.com, www.gardentherapyyorkton.ca, or on Facebook, “Garden Therapy Yorkton.”