It looks like elephant garlic to me. We had a few of these come up last year, our first in NM. The spikes opened into a large globe-shaped flower, similar to a flowering allium. I think it was white. When this happened, I pulled up the whole plant, and the bulb at the bottom was elephant garlic.

Cheryl

I was going to say that it looks more like an onion flower than a garlic scape. Garlic scapes curl down and don't grow straight up like that from what I understand and from what I have seen in my own garden.

I agree with Cheryl, it looks like elephant garlic which is closely related to leek. If you let it go till July and dig it when the tops start to yellow a bit, it should look like a huge garlic.

-Mark

It's NOT an elephant garlic, I have those in my garden also, I bought them. This plant does NOT make bulbs, I went from a three plant clump my neighbor gave me last year to 25 plants this spring. They never made cloves, they still were like green onion shaped this spring. They are very tasty but MILD, not strong at all. Do leeks make cloves like garlic or do they stay looking like they look in the store? It might possibly be leeks? The top is very tall and the seed head is about as big around as a quarter with that long spike going up to the top. Any more clues or ideas?

Are the leaves flat like garlic or round like green onions? If they are flat you probably do have a leek. One thing leeks do that seems unique is to grow little plantlets on the outside of the shank. At first the plantlets lie right up against the mother plant, with little "pearls" down below that develop their own roots. Might be a sign to watch for. Overwintered leeks often develop a small swelling right at the base, just above the roots, but it's not really a bulb.

What about Egyptian aka Walking Onions?

Leek are only planted from seeds. They do not make a REAL bulb like onions or garlics, instead they grow thick stem. Althou they have flat leaves like garlic but they are more like onions, even milder than the sweetest onion.

The scapes flower like onions (globe shaped) and produce seeds. For a leek to be the size shown in the picture, it must be about t two years old. First year they look like garlic chive, or a little wider leaves.