Garlicana is a very small farm located in the southern end of the Cascade Mountains in Oregon. Here a diverse array of garlic and shallots are grown without the use of toxic chemical fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides or fungicides and careful attention is paid to sustainable soil practices. The farm specializes in less common varieties and developing new varieties through traditional seed breeding methods.
July
While it’s officially summer here, rain came at the end of June followed by mild temps and high humidity. These are hardly ideal conditions for garlic at or near maturity. Until hot dry conditions return, it was necessary to strip down wet stems and pre-dry the garlic before hanging. The concern was that moisture would remain trapped in the stems as they were cinched in bundles and lead to fungal infection. While i appreciate not harvesting when it’s in the triple digits, the process was slow. Overall, harvest is averaging 5 days earlier than normal with some varieties coming in up to 10 days earlier. I expect to have the harvest finished by the 3rd week of July which is when seed orders will be accepted. Between harvest and all the other farm work, it’s a busy time; consequently i may be very slow to respond to email inquiries. If you don’t get a response, try again after harvest or call if you need more information. I will have time while sitting cleaning up the harvest, an activity that is expected to last till September.
June
May brought around 1.5″ of rain, .85″ of which came down in about half an hour early in the month in a spectacular thunderstorm which included chickpea sized hail. While newly transplanted brassicas and lettuces didn’t make it, most of the garlic is fine. Most. Walking out to the field it was as if a layer of 3/4- gravel had been spread over every bit of exposed ground. It accumulated in the pathways between beds. Garlic with vertical or semi vertical leaf architecture was largely unaffected. Even garlic with lateral leaves, while pocked and bruised has since recovered, if the leaves were fibrous. Garlic with low leaf fiber sustained damage, the most vulnerable of which were Creole types. The hail lacerated the tender leaves with many plants shredded. Over the weeks it’s been interesting to see plants heal, assess what has recovered. Foliar feeding or injecting compost tea and fertilizer through the drip lines can only do so much when the plant’s capacity to absorb energy from the sun has been impaired. While yield will certainly be affected, in the end, we shall see how it turns out at harvest. Things are coming along in the rest of the farm. After typical obstacles like equipment problems overwintered cover crops have been mowed and turned in. Sudan grass was sown where the garlic will be planted this fall. Potatoes, dry beans, black popcorn and winter squash were planted and there’s much yet to go. High tunnel Turban & Glzaed garlic was harvested and the field Turbans will come out in days. Scape cut dates have thus far been a little early which i’m attributing to mild early spring weather.
May
It’s mid spring, the hills a lush with many shades of green in spite of the dry winter. Dogwoods are blooming. The aroma of apple flowers has passed in favor of lilac and fragrant cottonwood buds are dropping. Even the dogs smell like cottonwood till i brush out their fur. Frosty mornings and mild days have characterized recent weather. With only 3.25″ of rain in April, the cover crop growth has remained sluggish and before the last rain i thought i’d need to irrigate the garlic. When i get concerned about the torpid pace of garlic growth, which is pretty much every spring, it really helps to go to the field with a soil thermometer. As i write, the soil is still under 60F. Once the soil warms over 60, biological activity increases, nitrogen becomes more available and the garlic really takes off. The Turban crop in the high tunnel is scaping, weeks ahead of the field crop. Then again, given the mild winter, the tunnel soil didn’t get cold enough to properly vernalize the garlic and a fair bit of the Turbans are brooming. This fall i’ll make sure to pre-chill them before planting, lesson learned. Speaking of pre-chilling, i recently took the flats of TGS out of the 37F walk-in after two months and, to my delight, many of them are beginning to germinate. Less exciting news is that USPS has dramatically jacked up postage prices. I have, with some kvetching, adjusted the rates accordingly on the order page. Orders for fall planting are accepted in summer, after harvest. Hopefully there’ll be more rain before then.
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There have been numerous inquiries about the artwork on this site, most of which is by Fiona. This is but a glimpse into her outstanding repertoire. Primarily a print maker, her work can be seen here.
If you have queries, contact me. Try calling if you don’t get a quick response to email. It’s a landline so i won’t get your texts if you try to do that. If the contact form doesn’t work, just email directly to garlic@garlicana.com (i actually prefer that to the contact form) and let me know.
Please read the Contact/Order page before asking for prices, shipping information or the address.
When you send in your check, if there is neither a form nor piece of paper that includes who you are, your email and shipping address, i will neither send your order nor cash your check. Preferably there’s an order form with the varieties and quantities listed as it takes me time to search through emails to find your order on the computer.
At this point, while there is no True Garlic Seeds available, there is True Seed Progeny. Until consistent farm help can be found, there’s simply not the time to sort them out. That said, i intend to make available some small volumes of promising varieties derived from TGS that i have not necessarily named. I generally trial new accessions for several years. There are so many that it’s kind of a process of deselecting them. There are varieties that have useful traits but aren’t charismatic enough to come up with names and continually offer and yet, they are fertile and worth growing to make crosses. These accessions will be derivatives of varieties that have been pledged to OSSI, thus all offspring will necessarily remain in the public domain. If interested, inquire after harvest this summer. There is no list of these a quantities are limited to 1/4 each.
A few years ago Garlicana did an online presentation for the Culinary Breeding Network’s Winter Vegetable Sagra. There was a whole week of presentations on garlic available here.
