October News:

Planting Garlic: A Fall Ritual

Our ever-expanding selection of high-quality, local, organic seed garlic has arrived!

We have the following heirloom varieties, sure to out-produce the old garlic sprouting in your cupboard and non-certified seed garlic from the store:

Garlic - Killarney Red, Spanish Roja, Inchelium Red, Early Italian Purple, Italian Late, Silver Rose, Nootka Rose, Persian Star, Purple Glazer
also Shallots - Dutch Yellow, French Red

Now through the end of October is the ideal time to plant these aromatic lovelies. Garlic is purchased as a whole bulb, and separated into cloves for just prior to planting. Plant the cloves, skin and all, about 1-2 inches below the soil, and approx. 4-6 inches apart (or more for larger cloves). Each clove will grow into a bulb to be harvested the following year in late mid-summer. As the bulbs are rooting and growing they’ll sprout green blades above the surface of the soil that rise about a foot. The blades can be left, or harvested for cooking. A sprinkling of blood meal along the rows in spring will give a boost of growth in the cool soil. The cloves grow only as large as the greens that produce them, so encourage their growth until you start to withhold water in the summer prior to harvest.

When you harvest the bulbs, shake off the soil, but don’t wash them. They need to be left in a cool dark spot to cure for a couple of weeks. After that time, I put them in a paper bag in the basement and bring them up to the kitchen as needed. Storage varities will last 6 months or longer!