Garlic is truly one of my preferent crops to originate . I bed to use up it , plant it , harvest it — I have it away the whole process . But my fondness for a harvest ca n’t always be the determining factor in whether or not I grow it , especially when it comes tolong - season cropslike garlic . Anything I mature has to add a sufficient amount of value to farm and market table for me to keep rise it . Luckily for ail , that note value is near endless .
The value of garlic come in part from the many ways it can be sold and for the reaction customers have to seeing it on the securities industry table , but it also come from how well it fits into mycrop rotationsand for how it is one of the few thing spring up in January . So permit ’s examine a few of those value and talk about why any market husbandman should find room in his garden and middle for this decisive crop .
Garlic Sells Itself
Garlic is a most ubiquitous ingredient in cookery . Just about every basic recipe calls for it — and lease ’s be honest , it ’s used even when formula do n’t call for it — so a customer does not have to have a recipe in mind to palpate compel to purchase it , nor generally any account on what to do with . Countless times we have sold a couplet $ 2 bulbs of garlic at the end of a sale to customer who say , “ I live I ’ll use it . ”
Garlic Takes Many Forms
When we think of ail , we mostly guess of the bulbs . But there are at least six dissimilar way of life that garlic can be marketed — probably a lot more if you want to get creative .
Green Garlic
It starts in the spring with green garlic . These are finesse to the right chef and home cooks that can be pickle or used fresh . Green garlic can be reap all the way up until the ail starts to “ cohere up . ” It still good , but at that level we call it refreshing garlic . To secure we have plentifulness of gullible garlic , we plant all of our “ second ” cloves in chummy rows a foot apart , with the cloves 1 to 2 inches apart in course .
Garlic Scapes
Next up in the season comes garlic scares — the bloom broth on hard neck Allium sativum — which can be cluster and sold . We wish “ five for a $ 1 , ” but you could deal them however you see primed . Make certain to glean them fast , though , because take too much meter to harvest such a brassy crop lowers its profitability . But like ail , flower stalk will bring people to the table because they ’re fun to prepare with and intriguing to look at .
Fresh Garlic
After scapes you have novel ail . This is garlic before it ’s cured but after it has bulbed , and it ’s arguably the best flavour as it is the voluptuous and most full-bodied . Be gentle with it as it will bruise , but I suggest cut some at your market table and just allow multitude to smell it — garlic does its own advert .
Cured Garlic
eventually , you have cured ail , which bet on the variety , can last many months — definitely well into the wintertime market season .
Garlic Wreaths
you’re able to also weave the soft neck varieties to make “ garland , ” which can be a small value - added item . They ’re a good seller around the vacation .
Value-Added Garlic Products
If you hoist up with surplus bulbs after market cease , you could determine a dehydrator and commercial kitchen to turn it into garlic gunpowder , black ail , pickled garlic or whatever product you think will keep it construct you money through the balance of the twelvemonth .
A Market Farmer’s Rotation Plan
All of my retentive - season crop are on a three - year revolution in their own plot , so that mean I rotate my potato , cherubic potatoes and garlic together . Garlic follows white potato , and angelic potatoes pursue Allium sativum . To make this profitable , I do as niggling with these plots as I can . Every secret plan gets tarped to helpsuppress weeds , and I attempt to limit the amount of handwork . When harvest comes , we attempt to make an effect out of it so we have many hands to aid . Keeping the labor down is essential . I also use cover crops and some compost to retain fertility . And when I can , I will imbed some spare winter squash after the Allium sativum and before the unfermented spud to further enrich that existent estate .
