The great thing about garlic is that it always comes full circle.
As growers, we learn something new every season we work with this plant. Garlic is our teacher; it asks us to observe, plan, prepare, sow, nurture, wait, anticipate, tend, harvest, cure, withhold and share. What a joy it is to be the caretakers of this delicious, medicinal wonder food!
Back at BF1 we got our original seed garlic from the Quicks at Honey Creek Farm. All of their varieties were beautifully sorted, graded, and described, which made it hard to decide which ones to select! Eventually we came up with a starting line up for markets and CSA, and have continuously worked to select the best varieties for our soil, growing method and customer demand. Over the years we've dropped a few varieties and added others, but in the end our old standby's, Tony Sarona Red and Montana Giant, have stood the test of time. In 2019 we added a Honey Creek exclusive called Michael's Wild that has come to be my personal favorite for it's spicy garlic flavor and silvery, luscious cloves.
So far this season the farm crew has done fine work getting the garlic out of the growing beds and into the nursery for a month of dry curing. Once the heads are cured, it's time to send them out into your shares and to the market, where they will be happily consumed and planted by other garlic lovers. Which brings us back to full circle. The sun is still high in the sky, but a day will come when the winds change and it will be time to gather our seed and tuck the cloves into the earth again for another cycle of growing.
For those of you who love garlic, may you happily anticipate the coming of this year's great garlic harvest...and in the meantime, eat your vegetables:-)
Danielle
