July, gone so fast that we miss you already. Sure you may be full of heat, humidity, sweat, dirt and toil. But you are all ours and there is no other month like you. With everyone’s favorite month behind us , there is no choice but to look forward to the fall. We’ve already added spinach seeds to our virtual cart and ordering Tulips for next year is high up on our list of priorities. We should probably also order our old friend claytonia, seed we buy plenty of each year but somehow do a excellent job of misplacing as well.
This past week marked the harvesting of the last of the Love Garlic. What started as 200 hundred pounds of seed now lay drying in our barn with the first half nearly ready to be clipped and stored. We are hoping to have a small gathering with friends, family and good food people to help us do the clipping, while we enjoy libations and grub. We will see if time allows such a gather or perhaps it will be J and J supervised by the sheep, clipping garlic in the moonlight.
If you have not heard the origins of our Love Garlic now seems to be a fitting time for such a tale. You see the garlic we grow here on the farm, a lot of it(over 50%) is what we call Love Garlic. This is not a recognized variety(yet), in truth what we grow here is German White a hard neck variety. Though all of what we grow is German White, each year a larger and larger percentage of it is also Love Garlic. The start of the LG goes nearly all the way back to the first time Jen and Joel met. Having already met but still yet to fall in love, J and J found them selves both working for their perspective farm employers at the Saturday Farmer’s market. Towards the end of the market Jen found herself at SLG’s tent and her and Joel struck up normal market conversation. Joel kindly offered Jen to take anything she wanted from the display, but the only thing she wanted was a bulb of garlic. As if with magic, as the Garlic passed through one’s hand to another a spark lit the air. The spell had been cast and J and J were now bonded by the power and love of that bulb of garlic. Though that specific bulb was consumed some point around there 2nd or 3rd date in a delicious soup, garlic from this same crop has been saved and replanted year after year. Currently we plan to save and plant 200 pounds of the LG, which would be 100 percent of the plantings. But with more real estate in Middlefield we will be hard pressed to buy another 100 pounds or so of seed garlic and test out the garlic growing prospects there.
In life and in farming there are many strong and powerful things. Arguably Love and Garlic are two of the strongest and most powerful forces which touch our hearts, bellies and dinner plates. We would say our lives and meals can always use a little extra of these, so don’t be shy when adding them to your day. Saying we are honored to help spread more love and garlic into the lives of all of you would be a drastic understatement. Just keep in mind the power you can wield when a big bulb of Garlic is paired with a big heart. You may just find yourself in a field some December planting your 2nd or 3rd generation of LG, paired with your better half.
This weeks Recipe & Nutrition Inspiration by EmPower comes from another favorite allium of ours, Red Long of Florence onion! Check out this Red Long of Florence Onion Dressing/ Marinade recipe . We will have Red Longs for another week or two.
Have a great week.