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market-farming - Re: [Market-farming] Green Garlic

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  • From: road's end farm <organic101 AT linkny.com>
  • To: Market Farming <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] Green Garlic
  • Date: Sun, 29 Apr 2007 10:56:05 -0400


On Apr 28, 2007, at 7:10 PM, Allan Balliett wrote:

For a bunch of 6 or 7 smallish stalks, we get $1.50 at farmers markets
and $.75 from grocery stores. Not organic. It is laborious to clean up
and it doesn't sell well dirty.

So, essentially you sell a sprouted head of garlic for $1.50. That
seems SO VERY CHEAP, especially if you are buying seed garlic.

My damned stalks around about 3/4 of an inch thick, have a white tip
that's almost 5 inches long and are a couple of feet long. They are
more like leeks than scallions.


Long before mine get that big they get tough. A bunch of mine, taken while they're still tender, is about the size of a bunch of young green onions. I wonder if it's a climate difference, a variety difference, or something else, if yours are still tender at that size? Or are the leaves tough, and you're selling them primarily for the stem?

I don't buy the seed garlic for these (or, usually, for any of my garlic). I usually have some garlic around that starts to sprout and becomes unsalable (often it was undersized or damaged bulbs that wouldn't have sold for much anyway). That's what I plant for garlic greens. I spring plant them, but then I don't start going to market till early June; if you start marketing them much earlier than that, you might want to fall plant some and spring plant some. If I plant them the first week of May, they're ready when I want them. This seems to be a spring-only crop; they're day-length sensitive, and get tough even when tiny once the days start to shorten instead of lengthen.

Last year I actually only got a dollar a bunch for them; but last year was the first year they sold any significant amout, in this market. As people get used to the idea I should be able to raise the price (it sounds as though I should raise it this year); and they help fill up the stand, early when I don't have much else. But this is in any case not a high priced market (cheaper to live around here, though).

I clean them by just peeling off the outer layer (which at that age often includes the remains of the planted clove).

-- Rivka; Finger Lakes NY, Zone 5 mostly
Fresh-market organic produce, small scale




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