Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[Larry Lombard <ljmelea@msn.com>]

one comment on testing for white rot;the university of idaho test cloves for white rot and you must be certified white rot free to grow in the snake river area of idaho.fyi,larry L and D Organics

> Date: Sat, 24 Nov 2007 12:45:13 -0700
> From: tradingpost@riseup.net
> To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
> Subject: [Livingontheland] Plant now for Great Garlic
>
>
>
> October/November 2005
> Plant now for Great Garlic
> By Barbara Pleasant
> http://www.motherearthnews.com/Organic-Gardening/2005-10-01/Plant-now-for-Gr
> eat-Garlic.aspx
> Here are 42 tips from six experts to help you grow the best crop
>
> Garlic tastes wonderful, whether you mince it for salsa, pure it for pesto,
> bake whole bulbs until the flesh is soft enough to spread on bread, or
> steam a few cloves in the same pot with potatoes.
>
> The perfect time to plant this crop A(llium sati)vuims late fall, a fitting
> last hurrah for the gardening year. Garlic does best in soil rich in
> organic matter; it also needs full sun and regular watering during the
> spring -sea son. In the summer, when half of its leaves turn brown, you can
> pull up the bulbs and treat yourself to the besttasting garlic you ve ever
> eaten, with a crisp texture unique to fresh, homegrown garlic.
>
> There are two main garlic types: softnecks, such as artichoke, Creole,
> Asiatic and turban varieties; and more cold-hardy hardnecks, represented by
> porcelain, purple stripes and rocambole types. (See The Language of Garlic,
> Page 74, for the characteristics of each type, including the climates in
> which they grow best and how well they keep through the winter.) Climate
> plays an important role in the survival quality of garlic, which a-lso is a
> prisingly responsive crop. If you save and replant the best cloves from
> your garden-grown garlic, it will show its satisfaction with the particular
> growing conditions in your garden by improving in quality with each passing
> season.
>
> Where should you start and what should you expect? The garlic grower s art
> varies from one climate to another, but these six organic growers offer
> expert advice for every region.
> NORTHWEST: FILAREE FARM
>
> Since 1977, Filaree Farm in north-central Washington has been a pioneer in
> collecting, growing and selling little-known strains of gourmet garlic. All
> hundr-ed-plus va rieties grown at Filaree Farm are planted at the end of
> September, in soil that has been kept in alfalfa and other cover crops for
> seven years between garlic plantings.
> close Close
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>
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>
> For Northwest gardeners-, own er Watershine Woods recommends turban
> varieties such as Portuguese because they come in early, and marbled purple
> stripes because they are big plants with beautiful bulbs that have big
> cloves.
>
> It's best to start with a small plot, Woods says, so you can make your
> mistakes on a small scale. It s also important to handle the bulbs
> carefully when you harvest them. Her advice is to treat the bulbs like
> cracked eggs.
>
> Woods says she likes to steam garlic by adding peeled cloves to potatoes or
> rice during the last 3 minutes of cooking time. - It will soft en and you
> can eat it whole or mash it up, she says. Sh-e also en joys making her own
> garlic powder.
> UPPER MIDWEST:
> GIRARDIN GOURMET GARDENS
>
> Minnesotan Joel Girardin grows more than 150 varieties in four row beds, in
> which he rotates garlic with heirloom tomatoes, squash and melons. Twelve
> years ago, Girardin became interested in growing garlic after trying
> strains grown by Seed Savers Exchange members. He found little information
> on how it was done in Minnesota, so he started experimenting. He says
> hardnecks porcelain types such as Georgian Crystal and Music, as well as
> various purple stripes perform best in his area. Before planting garlic in
> early October, Girardin fertilizes his beds with organic fertilizer made
> from poultry manure.
>
> For big bulbs, he spaces cloves 6 inches apart. He also plants whole bulbs,
> which grow into two delicious spring crops greens and scallions.
>
> When the tops are 4 inches to 6 inches tall, they can be cut off and used
> in salads, like garlic chives, he says. When the tops grow back to 12
> inches tall, we dig the whole bulb, break it apart and have garlic
> scallions, which are lik-e onion scal lions, with a white bulb and green
> top, and a nice garlic taste.
>
> He and his wife also love baked garlic, made by lopping off the tops from
> -several ma ture bulbs (so the tips of the cloves are exposed), drizzling
> them with olive oil and then roastin-g them un til soft. Girardin mixes the
> roasted garlic warm from the oven -with a lit tle mayonnaise and spreads it
> on toast.
> NORTHEAST:
> G & H GARLIC FARM
>
> James Gunderson has been growing garlic for five years in Littleton, N.H.
> He says it took three years to develop strains that do well in his area s
> cold clay and to improve his soil with green manure crops.
>
> You really need a lo-t of or ganic matter in the soil, because garlic needs
> room to breathe, he says. At G & H Garlic Farm, Gunderson rotates three
> years of cover crops with each c-rop of gar lic. Garlic s need for great
> soil a good thing to learn when you have only 1 or 2 pounds in the ground,
> but even while you- re learn ing, garlic is an enjoyable crop to grow
> because while it s in the ground, you don t have to attend to it as much as
> other garden crops.
>
> Gunderson plants his garlic in early October and covers it with 6 to 8
> inches of wheat straw. The straw is essential to keep the frost from
> pushing the bulbs out of the ground, he says. Gunderson recommends hardneck
> Spanish Roja rocambole and softneck Asian Tempest Asiatic, as well as
> Georgian Crys-tal porce lain for sausage making to growers in his region.
>
> All garlic grown in cold climates is likely to be quite spicy, Gunderson
> says, because the colder the winter, the spicier the garlic. The hardneck
> types that grow well in New Hampshire don t store well, so Gunderson s
> wife, Kim, who is Korean by birth, has refin-ed a pro cedure for pickling
> raw garlic in soy sauce, which Gunderson says he can eat by the bowlful.
> (Go to www.gourmetgarlicgardens.com/pickle.html find pickled garlic
> recipes.)
> CENTRAL:
> BOBBA-MIKE S GOURMET GARLIC
>
> Bob Zimmerman and Wendy Douglas wait for October s full moon to plant their
> garlic at Bobba-Mike s in Orrville, Ohio. They na-me sever al hardnecks as
> regional standouts: Music porcelain because it is so cold hardy; Romanian
> Red - porce lain for its incredible pungent flavor; and Chesnok Red purple
> stripe for roasting or adding to pasta dishes. Zimmerman also recommends
> Georgian Fire porcelain -as an ex cellent choice for salsas and other
> Mexican dishes.
>
> Zimmerman says to make sure you have a soil test done -and ap propriately
> amend the soil. Garlic likes a pH (acidity level) of 6.5 to 7, and the soil
> should be ri-ch in or ganic matter. We use composted leaves and chicken
> manure, he says. Zimmerman and Douglas plant their garlic 3 inches deep in
> rows 5 inches apart. After the garlic is harvested in midsummer, a quick
> crop of buckwheat is sown in its place.
>
> They say it s hard to go wrong if you start with a locally -adapted va
> riety and begin with a sm-all planti ng: Growing garlic is easy, and we
> think every backyard gardener should give it a try. Zimmerman and Douglas
> say they love to eat it with fresh homegrown tomatoes, basil, olive oil and
> a little salt black pepper.
>
> SOUTHEAST:
> CORNERSTONE GARLIC FARM
>
> Natalie Foster says sof-tneck arti choke garlics, planted from mid- October
> to mid-November, are the best varieties at Cornerstone, in North Carolina s
> wacky winter and spring conditions. Both Inchelium Red and Lorz Italian
> prosper in changeable weather, store for months and are great for braiding.
> Although Music porcelain often doesn t get very big, Foster says the
> easy-to-peel cloves are packed with big flavor, and you- get won derful
> scapes to eat in the spring. She loves eating the scapes either raw, baked
> or roasted.
>
> In search of more good scape producers for her climate, Foster says she is
> encouraged by- the per formance of various Asiat-ics and tur bans, which
> she has been growing for the past two years. She mulches her garlic with
> chopped leaves, mostly for weed suppression, but in her humid climate,
> harvesting garlic at the right time is the -biggest chal lenge. Harvest
> garlic when the leaves are no more than 40 percent to 50 percent brown, and
> try to get it when the soil is dry, she says. Because curing garlic is
> difficult in humid conditions, Foster closely trims the roots and shakes
> off dirt from freshly dug garlic, but never washes it. We also have found
> that garlic cures best when the stalks are cut back to 2 to 4 inches,
> especially with hardnecks. Foster also highly recommends mild-tasting
> elephant garliAc. (ampelopras)u,m which is really a leek, because it s such
> a prolific grower, producin-g 4-inch-di ameter bulbs that often weigh 8
> ounces or more. I stuff my Thanksgiving turkey with elephant garlic, and my
> guests don t know I used garlic. They just know my turkey is great, she
> says.
> SOUTHWEST:
> GOURMET GARLIC GARDENS
>
> Bob Anderson began growing garlic in Bangs, Texas, in 1993, after his wife,
> Merridee McClatchy, bought him a copy of Ron Engeland’s Growing Great
> Garlic. Since then, he’s found that the best garlics for his area include
> ‘Burgundy’ and other Creoles; marbled purple stripes such as
> ‘Metechi’ and ‘Siberian;’ and ‘Red Toch’ artichoke?—?all
> varieties with good tolerance of Texas’ intense sun.
>
> “The worst problem we can have is an early heat spell,” Anderson says.
> “Not every garlic reacts the same way to adverse circumstances. In any
> given year, some will flourish and others won’t do as well. Then, the
> next year, they will change places.” In years when grasshoppers are
> especially bad, Anderson has found that covers made from aluminum window
> screening are the only thing that will slow the ’hoppers down.
>
> To prevent fungal diseases, Anderson always follows garlic with brassicas.
> >From there, he rotates to legumes and then to either nightshades or okra.
> “Garlic evolved in some pretty sparse turf, but it still needs good soil
> balance, with good mineral content,” he says. No matter where you live,
> or what kind of garlic you grow, Anderson says freshly harvested homegrown
> garlic is crisp, juicy and delicious.?
> The Language of Garlic
>
> Garlic includes two subspecies softneck and har-dneck. Many subdi visions
> and some crossovers exist between these t-wo groups. In the in terest of
> practical simplicity, we have divided each subspecies into three primary
> groups.
> SOFTNECK TYPES (ALLIUM SATIVUM SATIVUM)
>
> • Artichokaensd silverskairnes the familiar grocery store garlic. Large
> bulbs are composed of 12 to 20 cloves, with the largest cloves on the
> outside of the bulbs. Most don t send up seed scapes, though a few
> sometimes do. Cured bulbs store up to a year and are great for braiding.
> Artichokes grow best in mild winter areas.
>
> • Creoleshave fewer, larger cloves, with deep burgundy or silver skins.
> Their flavor is full-bodied and moderately spic-y. The plants often pro
> duce weak scapes, and the bulbs store well. Creoles grow best where winters
> are mild and summers are hot.
>
> • Asiatiacnsd turbanasre considered softnecks, though they often develop
> a scape typical of hardnecks but weaker in structure. Early maturing with a
> uniquely sweet and hot flavor, these must be harvested promptly and have a
> short storage life. adapt to a wide range of climates.
> HARDNECK TYPES (ALLIUM SATIVUM OPHIOSCORODON )
>
> • Porcelaivnarieties, sometimes called continentals, have thick,
> parchmentlike wrappers covering four to six large cloves with complex
> flavors that hold up well when cooked. Plants develop curled scapes. Mature
> bulbs store better than rocamboles. Porcelains grow best in cold climates.
>
> • Purple stridpeevselop curled scapes and eight to 12 medium-sized
> cloves, with purple stripes and blotches on clove skins and wrappers. Easy
> to peel and great for baking, purple stripes longer than rocamboles. They
> grow best in cold climates.
>
> Rocamboles come in a variety of colors; all send up double-looped scapes.
> Famed for their strong, rich flavor, rocamboles produce six to 11 cloves
> that are easy to peel but do not store well. They grow best in climates
> with cold winters and cool springs.
> Make Garlic Powder
>
> When great garlic begins to go soft in storage, it s time to make garlic
> powder. cloves, cut them into thin slices and then dry them in a skillet in
> a 150-degree turning often. Grind the dried slices in a blender, and then
> sift the material strainer to separate the chunks (great for pizza) from
> the finer powder, which use on any food that can benefit from a
> concentrated shot of garlic flavor. powder in airtight jars in a cool
> place, or freeze for long-term Storage.
> Buying the Best Bulbs
>
> WATCH OUT FOR WHITE ROT
>
> White rot, causSecdl ebryo tium cepi,voirsu ma garlic disease affecting
> -mostly large mercial growers on the West Coast. Once introduced into a
> field, the white may survive for 20 to 30 years.
>
> Unlike potatoes, there are no standards or certification processes for
> garlic Experts recommend buying your initial seed stock from a small local
> grower. ask hard questions first of whoever you are buying from about any
> disease be picky about what you receive, says Dorene Pasekoff, a longtime
> organic in Pennsylvania. Inspect the bulbs when you receive them. If they
> look rotten the grower know and reject them. White rot symptoms include
> white, cottony the clove cover and poppy seed-sized black marks on and in
> the bulb.
> GARLIC SOURCES
>
> Bobba-Mike s Gourmet Garlic
> Orrville, Ohio
> (330) 855-1141
> www.garlicfarm.com
>
> Cornerstone Garlic Farm
> Reidsville, N.C.
> (336) 349-5106
>
> Filaree Farm
> Okanogan, Wash.
> (509) 422-6940
> www.filareefarm.com
>
> G & H Garlic Farm
> Littleton, N.H.
> (603) 444-5805
> www.gandhgarlicfarm.com
>
> Girardin Gourmet Gardens
> Randolph, Minn.
> (507) 263-5897
>
> Gourmet Garlic Gardens
> Bangs, Texas
> (866) 348-3049
> www.gourmetgarlicgardens.com
>
> Seed Savers Exchange
> Decorah, Iowa
> www.seedsavers.org
> -----------------------
>
> paul tradingpost@lobo.net
>
>
>
>
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