Open for Garlic Orders - get ready to plant something spicy this Fall!

 We have lots of beautiful porcelain garlic strains for sale, gorgeous Marbled Purple Stripes, and many other kinds as well!  The Catalogue is here, and on the Catalogue page. The catalogue page also contains a list that is updated as strains of garlic sell out. The maximum limits on the Catalogue page have been adjusted as of Sept 25th, to better reflect our remaining inventory.  A few strains have been sold out, but there is still lots to choose from, and a great selection of bulbils.

If you are in the area and wish to pick up an order, be advised it is a gravel road, and be sure to use your map! Google maps may send you down our sideroad. This pin on google maps shows where our laneway actually is, and it will not ask you to walk across a potentially muddy field - though I know some of you probably would do it just to get at our garlic!

August Update

 

Hey Garlic Growers, 

Ever wonder what my garlic looks like before it's trimmed and packaged into your orders?

Here is a quick, informal video tour of the Granary (my garlic curing and storage area):
96 strains of garlic in one room. (bitchute.com)

In preparation for launching the catalogue on August 20th, here are a few details for this year:

Price is $20.00/ pound for seed garlic ( $10.00/ half pound, and $4.25/ bulb)

Eating garlic available for $12.00/ pound.

Bulbils are $5.00/ pkt of 2 umbels.

The Stratford Garlic Festival is back - scaring the vampires out of the City of Stratford again - (or so we can hope, they've run rampant in town for two years now).
Our farm will not have a booth this year, and are looking forward to experiencing it from a different perspective, as shoppers only. 

It will be possible to pick up pre-orders at the Farm, on Sept 10 and 11th, if you are in the area, during one of the garlic festival days: Home - Stratford Kiwanis Garlic Festival (stratfordgarlicfestival.com) 
When The Kiwanis club posts the schedule for the Festival, we will be able to set our hours for pick up times on those days.

My plan for the following year is to grow slightly larger amounts of the popular and easy-to-grow Porcelains and Marbled Purple Stripes, and down size most everything else to a seed library quantity.
I may have bulbils available from the "seed library", so that I can continue to share the genetic diversity of my garlic collection, but for 2023, I will not have the same set up for the catalogue, it will be much simpler. 

Garlicky Regards, Julie

The Harvest of 2022

It is great to see the sun set on a another garlic crop - because it is really just another chapter opening - and with all the drought we've been having, we could certainly use a change. 

It is also nice to see what the results are of a nine month project. The results are in, and other than a couple of nobbly, oddly-shapen bulbs that couldn't push through the rock-like clay, the size and quality is surprisingly good. I'd say it's about average to all my other years, and with all the dry air, it's curing nicely.

Some of you may be wondering about this year's catalogue. I plan to have it out on August 20th.

 I've just started trimming the Artichokes and Rocamboles, and getting a feel for quantities and how things will go. I am also plotting out the next planting of garlic, and how much seed to save, and making some changes so that I can continue to grow garlic in a way that works for me and my family. Mainly, I'm concentrating on the best porcelains and marbled purple stripes for a year (or longer) while I downsize the rest to a "seed library" quantity, just large enough to keep these varieties going, while offering bulbils to get other people started, if they are interested.  I may expand again in the future, we are just working through some transitions on the farm.

My sister Rachel, cleaning off the bulbs expertly, and laying them in piles to be picked up by me, after I'm done taking pictures.

I hand dug a fair bit of garlic this year, as I was worried about the undercutter rising out of the hard, chalky-textured soil and smashing a bunch of bulbs in half. You can really tell where the drainage tile, and the nice ground is on a dry year. Normally it's a fairly solitary job, but one of our cats chose to keep me company for quite a while.

The harvested garlic at the start of filling the granary, where we have climate control with two dehumidifiers/air conditioners.