The Garlic Store Late Summer 2004 Newsletter

WE'RE OPEN! THE 2004 HARVEST IS NOW READY FOR ORDERING
The drought is almost over. Big, plump fresh garlic bulbs will soon be raining down upon happy gardeners and gourmet cooks around the nation-as long as they get their orders in before their favorite varieties sell out. You can check our summary page, Overview: What’s Available in 2004, for the current line-up. We have kept the layout of the site pretty much the same as last year. Like in the past, those varieties already shipping are marked with an “A”. Those that are curing but which can be advance ordered are marked with an “AO”. Those with “SO” next to them are, alas, already sold out. By early September, virtually all varieties should be cured, cleaned and ready for shipping. Some varieties are already being shipped and new ones are becoming available almost every day. This year, along with our locally grown bulbs here at Yucca Ridge Farm, we are including the fruits of the labor of many organic farmers located literally from Washington to Maine. By buying these gourmet, hand-crafted garlics and allowing us to pay the growers a fair price for their hard work, you are helping support the small family farmer dedicated to organic practices and stewardship of the land.

We also have a new search feature (the little box in the upper left of most pages). It was developed by Bob, our super software whiz. It’s not GOOGLE, but it works fine on our site. Maybe we should call it GARGLE? Nah, maybe not. Also, we also hope to be adding gift certificates as an option before the holiday season.

And note that in order to improve our service we have moved our website to a brand new server. We have tested it thoroughly, but as with any complex software system, little gremlins can still be lurking. The multitude of operating systems and browsers out there makes it a real challenge to maintain compatibility with every potential customer. As before, for our shopping cart to work, you must have your browser enabled to accept cookies (the electronic ones, not chocolate chip). If you do encounter any problems, especially with the ordering or checkout pages, please take the time to email us and let us know. You can also call us at 1-800-854-7219 to report hiccups, or place an order the old fashioned way, by talking to one of the denizens of the garlic store: Liv, Walt or Birgitte.

HOW TO STORE
People often ask us how to store garlic. See the link on the middle right of the home page (For the garlic chef: prepping, cooking and storing for details. But here are a few basics: Softnecks and elephants will last the longest, well into next spring. Hardnecks have a tough time making it past the holidays (assuming they haven’t all been eaten by then.) Ideal storage conditions are 55-60°F and 55% relative humidity, but even regular room temperatures are OK for two months or more. After late October, it might be a good idea to keep your bulbs in a paper bag or a garlic cellar to slow down the drying process, which is what eventually does them in. Do NOT store in the refrigerator. That causes the garlic to break dormancy and begin growing its bitter green shoot. (You can long term cold-store garlic at 27°F, but that is pretty tricky in a home refrigerator, which is usually running in the mid to upper 30s.)

WHAT ARE THESE THINGS?

After our Early Summer newsletter article about Elephant garlic corms, the hard, pointy tipped, little yellow “thingies” gripping the bulb’s wrapper, we have been corrected in our assumption that corms might be the only part of the garlic plant that is useless. In response to our query, we found out how wrong we were:

Reader Don Rinks eats them. He writes:
With the corm on a hard surface, place a knife blade flat ways on the corm and press down until you feel the shell crack. Remove the meat from the shell and slice thinly. The nice light flavor is especially good in salads or with egg dishes, which are sometimes overpowered by stronger garlics. He really likes it in Hawaiian rice, which is browned rice with boneless pork loin diced and sautéed with onion, celery, hot pepper, frozen or fresh corn and diced pineapple and the juice from its can, plus water (2.25 cups liquid per cup of raw brown rice.) Add the corms after the pineapple, place a lid on and simmer for 30 minutes.

Reader “Bob” writes: I have also heard them called Garlic Pearls. I dry them, crack them with a nut cracker and remove the shell, and freeze them. We just take a few out of the freezer and toss them into the stew as needed.

Reader Mark Munds plants them. He wrote that he simply placed the corms back in the ground after harvesting the elephant bulbs. They sent up green shoots later in the summer, which then died off. The came up again the next spring, and by the end of the following summer had produced some decent sized elephant bulbs.

Reader Art Porter has it both ways. He writes that he dries some of his corms and then replants them in the fall, getting quarter-size bulbs the next summer. He also saves some corms until spring and then plants them. Once new shoots emerge, he eats them just like green onions. “I can’t get enough of them. They are my favorite.”

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)

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 970-416-8695.
© The Garlic Store/FMA, Inc., 2004

Order online at www.TheGarlicStore.com

Late Summer 2004 Volume 3 Number 3
A MESSAGE FROM THE CHIEF CLOVE You are receiving our quarterly complimentary email newsletters because you have either explicitly signed up for it, requested a catalog or purchased products from www.TheGarlicStore.com. If for any reason you do not wish to continue receiving our newsletter, simply click here, and follow the instructions to unsubscribe. Remember: We value your privacy. We do not supply any information about you, including email addresses, outside of our company. As we spend our 8th year on the Internet, we hope you will enjoy this issue of our “ezine” being sent our friends in the garlic gardening and gourmet cooking community.
WE'RE OPEN! THE 2004 HARVEST IS NOW READY FOR ORDERING The drought is almost over. Big, plump fresh garlic bulbs will soon be raining down upon happy gardeners and gourmet cooks around the nation-as long as they get their orders in before their favorite varieties sell out. You can check our summary page, Overview: What’s Available in 2004, for the current line-up. We have kept the layout of the site pretty much the same as last year. Like in the past, those varieties already shipping are marked with an “A”. Those that are curing but which can be advance ordered are marked with an “AO”. Those with “SO” next to them are, alas, already sold out. By early September, virtually all varieties should be cured, cleaned and ready for shipping. Some varieties are already being shipped and new ones are becoming available almost every day. This year, along with our locally grown bulbs here at Yucca Ridge Farm, we are including the fruits of the labor of many organic farmers located literally from Washington to Maine. By buying these gourmet, hand-crafted garlics and allowing us to pay the growers a fair price for their hard work, you are helping support the small family farmer dedicated to organic practices and stewardship of the land. We also have a new search feature (the little box in the upper left of most pages). It was developed by Bob, our super software whiz. It’s not GOOGLE, but it works fine on our site. Maybe we should call it GARGLE? Nah, maybe not. Also, we also hope to be adding gift certificates as an option before the holiday season. And note that in order to improve our service we have moved our website to a brand new server. We have tested it thoroughly, but as with any complex software system, little gremlins can still be lurking. The multitude of operating systems and browsers out there makes it a real challenge to maintain compatibility with every potential customer. As before, for our shopping cart to work, you must have your browser enabled to accept cookies (the electronic ones, not chocolate chip). If you do encounter any problems, especially with the ordering or checkout pages, please take the time to email us and let us know. You can also call us at 1-800-854-7219 to report hiccups, or place an order the old fashioned way, by talking to one of the denizens of the garlic store: Liv, Walt or Birgitte. HOW TO STORE People often ask us how to store garlic. See the link on the middle right of the home page (For the garlic chef: prepping, cooking and storing for details. But here are a few basics: Softnecks and elephants will last the longest, well into next spring. Hardnecks have a tough time making it past the holidays (assuming they haven’t all been eaten by then.) Ideal storage conditions are 55-60°F and 55% relative humidity, but even regular room temperatures are OK for two months or more. After late October, it might be a good idea to keep your bulbs in a paper bag or a garlic cellar to slow down the drying process, which is what eventually does them in. Do NOT store in the refrigerator. That causes the garlic to break dormancy and begin growing its bitter green shoot. (You can long term cold-store garlic at 27°F, but that is pretty tricky in a home refrigerator, which is usually running in the mid to upper 30s.) WHAT ARE THESE THINGS? After our Early Summer newsletter article about Elephant garlic corms, the hard, pointy tipped, little yellow “thingies” gripping the bulb’s wrapper, we have been corrected in our assumption that corms might be the only part of the garlic plant that is useless. In response to our query, we found out how wrong we were: Reader Don Rinks eats them. He writes: With the corm on a hard surface, place a knife blade flat ways on the corm and press down until you feel the shell crack. Remove the meat from the shell and slice thinly. The nice light flavor is especially good in salads or with egg dishes, which are sometimes overpowered by stronger garlics. He really likes it in Hawaiian rice, which is browned rice with boneless pork loin diced and sautéed with onion, celery, hot pepper, frozen or fresh corn and diced pineapple and the juice from its can, plus water (2.25 cups liquid per cup of raw brown rice.) Add the corms after the pineapple, place a lid on and simmer for 30 minutes. Reader “Bob” writes: I have also heard them called Garlic Pearls. I dry them, crack them with a nut cracker and remove the shell, and freeze them. We just take a few out of the freezer and toss them into the stew as needed. Reader Mark Munds plants them. He wrote that he simply placed the corms back in the ground after harvesting the elephant bulbs. They sent up green shoots later in the summer, which then died off. The came up again the next spring, and by the end of the following summer had produced some decent sized elephant bulbs. Reader Art Porter has it both ways. He writes that he dries some of his corms and then replants them in the fall, getting quarter-size bulbs the next summer. He also saves some corms until spring and then plants them. Once new shoots emerge, he eats them just like green onions. “I can’t get enough of them. They are my favorite.” 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) 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 970-416-8695. © The Garlic Store/FMA, Inc., 2004 Order online at www.TheGarlicStore.com	SPAM VS. ANTI-SPAM Should email spammers receive the death penalty? I would be curious to see what a national poll might yield if such a question were posed. But as peaceful people we are into more gentle approaches to dealing with the electronic age’s equivalent of the locust. Spam filters, however, are a mixed blessing. They keep out a lot of spam, but sometimes also the email you want. If you use such a system to avoid receiving yet one more pleading letter from the widow of Jonas Zavimbi or some Nigerian cabinet minister, please set it to accept our email reply for your electronic garlic order. The email will be from orders@TheGarlicStore.com or garlic@frii.com and the subject title will be “Thank you for your order .” HOW MUCH GARLIC TO ORDER? “How much garlic should I order” is a frequent question to The Chief Clove. “A lot!” is what he is tempted to answer (but restraint is a virtue much prized). Here are some guidelines for figuring out how much you need for you garden. Elephants should be planted 6 to 8 inches apart. A whole bulb has 3 or 4 cloves (they are really BIG this year.) So that gives you about 2.5 linear feet per bag or bulb. Hardnecks usually have 20-25 plantable cloves per half pound bag. Planting six inches apart, each bag provides 10 to 12.5 linear feet. Softnecks usually have closer to 25-30 plantable cloves, so that’s 12.5 to 15 linear feet. The “plantable” cloves are the larger ones (big cloves = big bulbs.) And the smaller cloves? Either plant them for spring greens-or eat ‘em. Have your cake and eat it, too. Heck, why wait until next year to start enjoying. MORE SAMPLER PACKS FOR 2004 Due to the tremendous success of our new sampler packs last year, we have created several new options. You can now order 4, 6 or even 8-pack samplers. Much of the demand has come from gardeners who simply can’t make up their mind about which of the 80 or so varieties we have to offer. So many garlics, so little time! So here is the line-up for this season: 1790 Softneck Favorites 4-pack 1791 Softneck - Colder Winters 4-pack 1792 Softnecks - Milder Winters 4-pack 1793 Hardneck Favorites 4-pack 1794 Hardneck - Colder Winters 4-pack 1795 Hardneck - Milder Winters 4-pack 1798 Super Sampler 4-pack 1796 Exotic Softnecks - 6-pack 1797 Exotic Hardnecks - 6-pack 1799 Super All-Star Sampler - 8-pack 1789 Rare & Heirloom Sampler - 8-pack The new Super All-Star Sampler allows you to try out one of each of the major varietal groupings of garlic (elephant, artichokes, silverskins, porcelains, turbans, purple stripes, rocamboles, asiatics.) The Rare & Heirloom Sampler is really exciting, bringing together hard-to-find and unusual bulbs. Many are in such short supply we can’t even offer them in the usual half pound bags. Be the first one on your block to grow Cuban Purple Creole or Chinese Pink Turban! Also new to our line-up this year are two zesty softnecks, French Tarne and its cousin, Ail de Pays Ger. Exciting new hardnecks include Armenian, Vekak Czech, and two Japanese varieties, Hokkaido Zaitai and Sakura. GARLIC SUPERSTITION Our local newspaper, the Coloradoan, recently ran a nice story about a Ft. Collins, CO gardener, a 74-year old retired research biologist, who each year faithfully grows up to 8000 plants, a lot of them for braids and pickling. The same story also mentioned some garlic superstitions, and these are even weirder than the usual garlic-vampire thing that shows up in such articles: Bullfighters wear a clove of garlic around their neck. It supposedly protects them from the bulls. Some mountain climbers carry garlic to ensure good weather. Dreaming about garlic brings good luck. You should take garlic on a boat trip as it will prevent drowning. Whatever. A NEW GARLIC WEB SITE The world wide web is a very interesting place. It does, admittedly, have some pretty strange neighborhoods. When we told our friends back in 1997 about starting www.TheGarlicStore.com, “pretty wacky” was among the gentler reactions. But today you can even go to a new web site called www.nevertrustanyonewhodoesntlikegarlic.com Honest. It’s a real web site. And fun, too. Where else could you learn that Homer Simpson doesn’t like garlic (“…gives me sour stomach and throw-up burps.”) We couldn’t make this up! A NEW GARLIC RECIPE FOR YOU… This garlic tart is lovely as a light lunch, as part of a buffet or as a side dish for meats or chicken. Garlic Tart with Cream Cheese and Spinach I frozen pie crust 1 garlic bulb (about 10 cloves, unpeeled) 1/2 cup parsley 1 cup spinach 6 oz. cream cheese 4 oz. half-and half 3 eggs, beaten salt and pepper to taste Pre-bake the pie crust according to manufacturer's instructions. Cool. Simmer the garlic cloves until soft, about 25 minutes. Drain and cool. Mash to a paste and remove the peels. Cook the parsley and spinach in water until tender, 8-10 minutes. Drain and rinse with cold water. Squeeze out as much liquid as possible and chop finely. Mix in the garlic paste and spread the mixture evenly over the bottom of the pie crust. Mix thoroughly the cream cheese and the cream. Add the beaten eggs. Season with salt and pepper. Pour the egg-cheese mixture over the parsley-spinach-garlic paste and bake at 350 degrees F until set, about 25 minutes. 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).