We sell scapes when young and tender.

Garlic Scapes & Bulbs for Sale

Garlic Scapes

Many of our garlic varieties are Reds, and their wrappers much the same color or shades of this page background. The paper wrapper on our gourmet hardneck garlic bulbs are as thin as parchment and the clove wrappers peel away very easy, many time as a single shuck. Here are a few examples of the garlic we grow, and a few of recipes we prepare for dinner here on the ranch. We will suggest to go along with these dishes, that you might serve a fresh summer salad, have a hard crust bread and a dip of blended olive oil/fresh crushed garlic/fresh ground black pepper for the bread.Yummy stuff!

In late spring the hardneck gourmet garlic plants form scapes. They have the consistency of a good fresh green bean or asparagus, with the mild flavor of garlic. These develop weeks before bulb harvest, and can be subsistuted into any recipe in place of garlic cloves, or cooked by themselves in olive oil and seasoned with fresh cracked black pepper and salt to taste. We chop the most tender fresh cuttings into our greens salad.

McKuster Ranch Garlic Quick Fix Pasta - recipe
if you have 20 minutes, you've got a gourmet dinnner
German Red Garlic on the right (strong flavor)
- see our listing of 18 varieties of garlic below

Three large cloves of garlic per person, olive oil, fresh parsley and/or herbs of your choice, dash of cayenne, enough pasta for the number of persons.
Cook pasta in lightly salted water according to package directions.
Toward end of cooking time, heat 1/4 cup olive oil (per person) in heavy saucepan over medium heat. When hot enough to saute (about four minutes before end of pasta cooking time), press garlic into heated olive oil. Add dash of cayenne. Stir and cook until the aroma drives you crazy (or pasta finishes cooking, whichever comes first), then turn off heat. Drain pasta. Stir chopped fresh parsley into saucepan with garlic and olive oil. Grind black pepper into the mix. Toss with pasta and serve. Pass parmesan and either good white wine (Sauvignon Blanc) or good cold microbrew.

Ms. Kittee's Garlic Clam Spaghetti - recipe
a wonderful Friday evening dinner for us...
Chesnok Red on the right (mild flavor)
Ready in about 12 minutes. The following is for one person. Can be increased easily for 2-4.

1/4 cup olive oil
3 cloves fresh garlic, pressed - see our 18 varieties of garlic below
1/4 cup chopped green onions (white if you don't have green)
Dash cayenne
1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon dried dill or dried basil
1 (6.5 oz.) can chopped or minced clams, with juice
Fresh ground black pepper
1/4 cup fresh parsley
1 slice fresh lemon or 1/4 cup white wine (dry or fruity)
1 T. butter (not margarine)
Six ounces spaghetti or other pasta noodles in salted water

Begin cooking pasta in salted water according to directions. As it cooks, prepare the sauce. In small, heavy saucepan, heat olive oil. Add pressed garlic and chopped onion, and stir and saute for just a few minutes (some people like the garlic browned, I like it cooked just until the onion is soft and translucent). Stir in dill or basil and cayenne. Drain juice from can(s) of clams into the saucepan, reserving the clams. (Note: If using wine instead of lemon, add wine now.) Heat to boiling and reduce for several minutes until "soupy." When of good consistency, turn off heat but leave saucepan on burner. Now add butter, clams, parsley, and black pepper and squeeze the lemon. Stir together until well blended. The sauce and the noodles should finish at the same time. Drain noodles and divide onto plates. Pour sauce over evenly. Serve with parmesan and chilled white wine. For garlic and clam lovers, this is absolutely the best, simplest, easiest, repeatable dish you can ask for!

McKuster Ranch Quick Fix Garlic Dip - recipe
great for party times

½ cup plain yogurt
½ cup mayonnaise
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
½ teaspoon salt
2 crushed/minced cloves garlic or to taste - see our 18 garlic varieties below
to spice up this dip you can add a dash of Cayenne pepper

Blend well and chill.
A great fast dip with fresh veggies (English cucumbers, carrots, celery, tomatoes wedges, broccoli) and chips.
We enjoy this dip so much we actually make about 32 oz. at a time using 32 oz. yogurt containers. 15 oz. yogurt/ 15 oz. mayo, etc.

Elephant Garlic- nearly 4 inch diameter bulbs

If you would like to find many more good and easy recipes for using garlic click on the link to Dakota Garlic Recipe. Click on this link to find Dakota Garlic Scape recipes.

We started our garlic production in 2003-2004. The crop we harvested in July 2004 looks good as you can see from the photos on this page, but a great deal of our 2004 production must go back into the ground... it is our seed stock.

In 2005 we hope to have a very full production of our 18 varieties of hard neck garlic. Below is a list of garlic we harvested in 2004.

We will be back shortly with descriptions from our garlic taste tests, here is a brief start. Keep in mind that the best flavor of hard neck garlic is between 2 weeks and 3-5 months after harvest.

To give you a guide to the pungency of different garlic we have rated the ones we have tested on a scale of 1 to 5.
1 = a light flavor with the pungency of a glowing garden radish
2 = the strength of a mild horseradish
3 = the strength of a usual grocery store soft neck garlic
4 = the bite of a good horseradish - great garlic taste
5 = the pungency of strong horseradish - strong garlic flavor
in most cases the flavor follows the strain of garlic, but also depends on freshness, soil and weather conditions during growing.

• Bavarian Purple -4- full strong flavored when cooked / very rich, hot eaten raw - gives flush like a bit of fresh horseradish
• Chesnook Red -3- mild & sweet when cooked / strong eaten raw
• China Rose -4- full strong flavored when cooked / very rich eaten raw / small bulbs, big on flavor
• China White -4- full strong flavored when cooked / very rich eaten raw / small bulbs, big on flavor
• Elephant -2- in the leek family with full garlic flavor - see picture above - our's have cloves the size of most store bought garlic bulbs
• Georgian Crystal -3- mild & sweet when cooked / strong, but not too spicy eaten raw
• German Red -5- strong long lasting flavor when cooked / very strong & spicy eaten raw - great for the above Quick Fix Garlic Dip - recipe
• Japanese -1- very mild, not strong or hot, leaves good aftertaste on palate
• Killarney Red -4-strong long lasting flavor when cooked / very strong eaten raw
• Metechi -3- full flavored when cooked / very rich, not too hot eaten raw
• Musik or Music -4- full long lasting flavor when cooked / very rich, hot eaten raw
• Persian Star -3+- full flavored when cooked / great earthy, not too hot eaten raw
• Polish Jenn -3- mild & sweet when cooked / full flavor eaten raw
• Romanian Red -3+- full flavored when cooked / very rich, medium to hot eaten raw
• Russian Redstreak -3+- full flavored when cooked / very rich, medium to hot eaten raw
• Siberian - 4- full flavored when cooked / very rich, hot eaten raw, very high allicin content
• Zemo - 3+ - full flavored when cooked / very rich, medium to hot eaten raw
• McKuster Ranch Softneck garlic - better than anything you have found in a grocery store

These 12 rows - 115 feet long are tilled and raked, six time to remove weeds and grasses from the bed.
No chemicals are used on our produce!

Late autumn garlic bed trenches dugged	trenches filled with straw and compost
Planting garlic late September-October	one clove at a time.
Cloves sown 8" apart zigzaged in double rows.	Put to bed for winter.
Early April - crop is emerging, rows are mowed and hoed	June 1 - Garlic with scapes in production
July 1 - Digging the '05 crop	Cleaning bulbs from the field before hanging to cure
18 varieties of garlic curing in the barn loft for 2-3 weeks	Cleaning bulbs to their silky white wrappers for market

Yep, this is a lot of work, for those who love the flavor of the stinking rose across their palate.
But it is a labor of love and a matter of taste.
Here's to good health to you and yours.
Live long and enjoy garlic!!

Commerical price for our gourmet hard neck garlics is $5.00 to $8.00 per pound. Price for our Elephant Garlic is $2 per 4 inch diameter bulb. Seed garlic is $10 per pound.

Last update: July 1, 2005
Webmaster: D. McKain
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