THE TIME HAS COME!
Stir that compost, grab that mouse and open that browser. We’re off! The 2006 garlic harvest is curing and we now can announce our line up. Our web site is now open to accept advance orders (AO). Some varieties sell out early, and as usual, it is first come, first served. We wait until all your ordered varieties are cured and ready before packing your order and shipping them together (we only bill when shipped). Almost all advance orders are shipped by mid-September, in plenty of time for all fall-planting, even in the northern tier states. Note: For those growers interested in 10 lbs or more, please call for bulk discount prices available on many varieties. Please call 1-800-854-7219, 10 AM- 6PM, Denver Time, Monday to Friday.
All varieties are Certified Organic, unless stated otherwise.You can order by half pound bags or by sampler packs. Half pound bags of softnecks yield 30-35 plantable cloves, hardnecks typically have 20-25 plantable cloves, and elephants can be from 2 to 5 cloves per bag (some are REAL big!). Remember, the larger the clove you plant, the larger the bulb you harvest. So we suggest planting your larger cloves, and eating the smaller ones. Or, you can plant the smaller ones and harvest them as greens when they reach 12-16 inches high in mid-spring. For those who can’t make up their mind which varieties to try (so many garlics, so little time…,) we have prepared an exciting collection of sampler packs with 4, 6 and 8 bulb selections. Each bulb yields an average of 6-8 plants, enough to have your garden bursting with variety. How many cloves do you need? We suggest planting six inches apart, so a typical hardneck bag plants a 10-12 foot row, and softneck bags provide a 15-17 foot row. Be the first one on your block to grow them all!
CURING THE CROP
By now almost everyone has harvested their crop. The next important step is curing the bulbs. People often ask us if they should wash their bulbs when they take them out of the ground. No! That is a good way to promote mold. Once the wrappers are dried, usually after 3-4 weeks, the residual dirt will just simply slough off with the outer wrapper. Leave the stems and roots on while curing. In the dry western air, we just stack the plants in open plastic baskets kept in a three-sided pole barn. The key to good curing is plenty of ventilation, no direct sunlight and no rain wetting the bulbs. In the humid east, people often bundle a dozen or so together and hang from racks in well ventilated spaces to facilitate curing. When the bulbs feel dry to the touch and the outer wrapper easily peels off by rubbing with the fingers, you are probably good to go. After curing, storage in a cooler room (55 degrees F is ideal) with moderate relative humidity (55%) is the way to go. However, come late fall, if you still have bulbs, you might wish to put the bulbs in brown paper bags to keep them from drying out excessively in the increasingly low relative humidity air found in most homes as winter approaches.
WE GET LETTERS
Not all our email is Viagra ads and jokes. Our fellow garlic lovers like to share some interesting ideas. Phil in Spokane , WA writes, “ I am a garlic grower on a small scale. I have just harvested both my regular and my elephant garlic…about 350 heads of regular and 85 heads of elephant. I let them dry and then peel the whole lot and add white wine and put it all in the blender and puree it into a slurry. I then dry it into sheets in my drying racks. When dry, I grind it in an old coffee grinder and have the best garlic powder I or anyone that I give it to ever had.” Yummy. (For those without drying racks, our Fine Food section has a nice collection of garlic powders and flakes).
And this issue’s winner of the hard core garlic lover is…. A reader who writes, “I peel three or four bulbs and put them in a Vita-Mix with just enough water to cover them and blend until liquefied. Good fresh stuff will turn green in the refrigerator. If you want a drink that will wake you up in the morning, get a teaspoon of that in a coffee cup with a little lemon juice, a goodly slug of Texas Pete and top it off with water. The eyelids roll up like old timey window shades! That will start your heart better than a defib. When I don’t take it, my boss/buddy complains that he has nothing to wake HIM up in the morning, and all he gets are the fumes. Oh, well. Can’t please everybody. Keep up the good work.”
WHEN TO PLANT
Folks in the northeast claim the best day to plant is Columbus Day. That’s a pretty good choice there, but the trick is to get the garlic in the ground 4 weeks before the soil is likely to start freezing. The idea is to promote solid root growth before winter sets in. And don’t worry if the shoots emerge. Garlic originated in Siberia. The shoots can handle temperatures well below zero (either Celsius or Fahrenheit). Studies have indicated the plant actually grows slightly above ground during the winter months. The further south one goes, planting can often be done one or two months later.Of course, there is always early spring planting for procrastinators.
DID YOU KNOW?
Garlic is reputed to have many wonderful properties, including “thinning the blood.” However, if you are planning surgery, talk with your doctor, as he/she will most likely suggest cutting back on garlic several weeks before. Similarly, if you are taking warfarin or any other anti-coagulant medicine, let your physician know that you like to consume a lot of garlic.
China is the leading garlic producer in the world, nearly 2/3rds the total, followed by South Korea and India . The US is a distant 4 th with less than 5% of the world’s total. However, American garlic production more than trebled during the 1990s.
A Washington , DC Spanish-themed tapas restaurant named Jaleo during the late spring offered a sauteed garlic scape appetizer on its menu. If you plant hardnecks, you too can have your own scape tapas treat come next June.
Last issue we reported on a Japanese rock group called The Garlic Boys, and their big “hits” named “Slime Ball” and “Water Closet.” There seems to be a trend here. We have now “discovered” an UK band called Garlic (www.garlicmusic.co.uk). They already have 5 CDs out. We’ll bet no one names their group Broccoli or Lima Beans…(though I wouldn’t bet too much on that, come to think of it).
A Garlic Recipe for You
This creamy, rich soup is one of our favorites.
The recipe was developed here at The Garlic Store, and we heat up the mellow flavor with a hefty dose of cayenne or habanero powder. But realizing that not everyone enjoys the bite of hot chilies, we have made the cayenne optional. The same goes for the sour cream garnish that we love, but that fat-conscious people might not want. In any case, the soup is delicious. Enjoy!
Roasted Garlic,Squash and Corn Soup
Enough squash to measure 3 cups roasted, cut into quarters
3 ears of corn, cleaned, kernels on
3 cups chicken broth
1 head garlic, cloves separated but unpeeled
1 apple, cored and halved
Dash of cayenne (optional)
Salt and pepper to taste
Sour cream (optional)
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Place the cut squash, the ears of corn, the garlic cloves and the apple in a single layer in a roasting pan and roast for 45 minutes or until the squash is soft. Scoop out the flesh of the squash and measure 3 cups. Put in a bowl. Squeeze the garlic cloves out of their skins. Add to bowl. Scoop out the flesh of the apple. Add to bowl. Puree the contents of the bowl in batches. You may add some of the chicken broth during the pureeing to make the processing easier. In a soup pot, combine the chicken broth and the puree. Cut off the roasted corn kernels and add to the soup. Stir and bring to a boil. Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve with a dollop of sour cream.
Published by: www.TheGarlicStore.com at Yucca Ridge Farm, 46050 Weld County Road 13, Fort Collins, CO 80524. A member of the Better Business Bureau Online. Email us at: TheChiefClove@TheGarlicStore.com or call us at 1-800-854-7219. (Mon-Fri, 10 AM - 6 PM Denver Time)
© The Garlic Store/FMA, Inc., 2006
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CURRENT LIST OF VARIETIES:
Elephants
Giant Roasting Bulbs
Jumbo Elephant Bulbs
Big Elephant Cloves
Elephant Rounds
Baby Elephant Garlic
Softnecks
Artichoke Varieties
Achatami
Ail de Pays Gers sampler packs only
Acropolis Greek
Applegate
California Early
Chet's Italian Red
Corsican Red new! sampler packs only
Early Red Italian
French Red sampler packs only
French Tarne
Inchelium Red
Italian Red
Lorz Italian
Kettle River Giant
Oregon Blue sampler packs only
Polish White
Red Janice sampler packs only
Red Toch
Shantung Purple
Siciliano
Simonetti
Sonoran sampler packs only
Susanville
Transylvanian
Silverskin Varieties
Nootka Rose
Silverwhite
Silverskin
Silver Rose
Garlic Braids
Hardnecks
Purple Striped Varieties
Bogatyr
Brown Tempest
Chesnok Red
French Germinador sampler packs only
Gautamalan Ikeda
Korean Red
Metechi
Persian Star
Purple Glazer
Red Rezan sampler packs only
Siberian
Vekak Czech
Porcelain Varieties
Armenian Porcelain sampler packs only
Bzenc new!
Georgia Crystal
Georgia Fire
German Hardy
German Porcelain
German White
Music
Polish Hardneck
Romanian Red
Rosewood
Stull
Zemo sampler packs only
Rocambole Varieties
Colorado Black (conventionally grown)
German Red
GSF#65
Italian Purple
Killarney Red
Lavigna new!
Marino
Russian Giant
Russian Red
Spanish Roja
Temptress
Asiatics,Turbans,Creoles and Other Varieties
Asian Tempest sampler packs only
Chinese Pink
Flower Pot Garlic
Morado Gigante
Sakura Japanese sampler packs only
Spring (Green) Garlic Seeds
Xian
BULBILS
Mixed Hardnecks
French Rocambole
Creole Red
Actual availability subject to change on short notice.
EVERYTHING I NEED TO KNOW I HAVE LEARNT FROM MY EMAIL
Now that the Internet has replaced Washington politics as America ’s leading source of sick humor and the absurd (a considerable accomplishment, one must admit,) we had to pass along these little gems that was sent in by one of our readers. The Chief Clove is now approaching senior citizen status (whoopee…discount tickets available to movies I don’t want to see,) jokes about the trials and tribulations of living and the great lessons learned in our daily battles over the decades appeal to us more and more, such as the following:
My husband and I divorced over religious differences. He thought he was God and I didn't.
I don't suffer from insanity; I enjoy every minute of it.
Some people are alive only because it's illegal to kill them.
I used to have a handle on life, but it broke.
Don't take life too seriously; no one gets out alive.
You're just jealous because the voices only talk to me.
Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder.
Earth is the insane asylum for the universe.
I'm not a complete idiot - some parts are missing.
Out of my mind. Back in five minutes.
God must love stupid people; He made so many.
The gene pool could use a little chlorine.
Consciousness: That annoying time between naps.
Ever stop to think, and forget to start again?
Being "over the hill" is much better than being under it!
Wrinkled was not one of the things I wanted to be when I grew up.
Procrastinate Now!
A hangover is the wrath of grapes.
A journey of a thousand miles begins with a cash advance.
Stupidity is not a handicap. Park elsewhere!
He who dies with the most toys is nonetheless dead.
Ham and eggs. A day's work for a chicken, a lifetime of commitment for a pig.
The trouble with life is there's no background music.
The original point and click interface was a Smith and Wesson.
I smile because I don't know what the heck is going on.
The Garlic Grower’s Video/DVD
We call it “A Garlic Gardener’s Guide.” This 32 minute production shows you the tricks of the trade for growing your own top flight garlic, and also provides some historical facts about the history of garlic, along with fun scenes from the Gilroy Garlic Festival. Available now as either VHS tape ($19.95 plus S&H) or DVD ($19.95 plus S&H)
QUESTIONS AND COMMENTS
You can always email TheGarlicStore.com with your garlic questions (TheChiefClove@TheGarlicStore.com.) But if you would like your question answered in an upcoming issue of The Garlic Store Gazette, just let us know. We can publish your favorite garlic pictures too (just send them as an email attachment).
Order online at www.TheGarlicStore.com
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