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The garlic is all in the ground :) We planted lots of all three main types of garlic - rocambole, porcelain and purple stripe. The Rocambole types we planted are German Red and Yugoslavian -- medium heat and lovely taste. Porcelain types are hotter and usually have beautiful white, large cloves. The porcelain strains we planted are Music, which is a Canadian-developed garlic, Georgian Fire, and Leningrad, which is new to us this year from a prominent Ontario grower. The last major strain is purple stripe, and it's the type that has the highest allicin content, for those who like garlic for its health benefits -- ours is Chesnok Red which we've grown for years.


chesnok red garlic at garlic goodness growing natural garlic and seasonal vegetables near innisfail ab chesnok red garlic at garlic goodness growing natural garlic and seasonal vegetables near innisfail ab georgian fire garlic at garlic goodness growing natural garlic and seasonal vegetables near innisfail ab georgian fire garlic at garlic goodness growing natural garlic and seasonal vegetables near innisfail ab chesnok red garlic at garlic goodness growing natural garlic and seasonal vegetables near innisfail ab huge music garlic cloves at garlic goodness growing natural garlic and seasonal vegetables in red deer county ab large yugoslavian garlic cloves at garlic goodness growing natural garlic and seasonal vegetables in red deer county ab

Garlic is sold out! Thanks to our wonderful customers for making this the best season ever. We plan to expand the garlic patch this fall - we're energized by our community of garlic lovers and fresh, local food supporters.


We have a trial running this year to see what happens with a garlic clove in the ground over the winter. We put a nice clove in each of 12 pots of garden soil and we'll take one out every month or so and have a look. Pictured below are the pots at the edge of the garden and the first look on November 12th. By that time we'd had a hard frost and then a milder spell. All we can see for sure is that the clove froze - it's translucent. We looked at another at the end of December but there's nothing different to see yet. The pots in January are shown below, and a clove from the end of January is cut open - still looking very frozen.


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Videos:
We did a couple of videos showing tomato seedlings in newspaper pots. The first one is live action and the second is pictures with captions.

And two more videos putting the toilet paper tomato seedlings into soil in compostable bags.

We love to eat garden tomatoes throughout the winter. Most years there are many ready at one time, so we process them as they’re ready. This year we don’t have any large tomatoes ripe yet, but the cherry tomatoes are ripening a few at a time. We lay them out on a cookie sheet in the freezer until they’re frozen solid and then transfer them into a bag either until there are enough to make into puree or else to use individually in soups or sauces when needed. The flavour is spectacular and it’s cool to have what looks and sounds like a bag of marbles in the freezer. There’s a video on you tube if you’d like to see.

cherry tomatoes ripening at garlic goodness growing natural garlic and seasonal vegetables in red deer county ab

We made a video of frying potatoes – just in case anyone wonders how we do it.

 fried potatoes at garlic goodness in red deer county ab

Here's another for baked potatoes :)

 baked potatoes at garlic goodness in red deer county ab baked potatoes at garlic goodness in red deer county ab baked potatoes at garlic goodness in red deer county ab

We've been using scapes in our marinade and loving it.

Garlic scape marinade at garlic goodness growing natural garlic and seasonal garlic near innisfail ab Garlic scape at garlic goodness growing natural garlic and seasonal garlic near innisfail ab


Highland Beef:

Scottish Highland cattle enjoying winter at garlic goodness in red deer county ab highland heifer at garlic goodness near innisfail ab

The Highland cattle sides are sold for 2019, but please let us know if you’re interested in purchasing one next year. There's a link to our beef page where there's updated information. Email if you have any questions.


Highland steer at garlic goodness


If you haven't checked out our instagram feed please do when you have time - we're posting more regularly as of summer 2019.

Garlic Information:

Garlic bulbils are small clones of the garlic plant that grow on top of the scape of hardneck garlic. The scapes are gorgeous and tasty, and the bulbils should be great for growing new plants. Here at the farm, though, we haven't had success in planting the bulbils - we don't spray for weeds and our soil is full of seeds and roots, so the bulbils get 'lost'. We're trying to find a good way of planting them, and this year we've put some in planters - hopefully they grow! 2019: the bulbils did grow and the planters are a great way for us to grow them, but even for bulbils it's better to plant in the fall, I think. German Red and Music bulbils were planted on October 17, 2019.

Handful of german red bulbils at garlic goodness growing natural garlic and seasonal vegetables near innisfail ab german red bulbils at garlic goodness growing natural garlic and seasonal vegetables near innisfail ab german red bulbils at garlic goodness growing natural garlic and seasonal vegetables near innisfail ab bulbils at garlic goodness growing natural garlic and seasonal vegetables near innisfail, ab bulbils at garlic goodness growing natural garlic and seasonal vegetables near innisfail, ab

Here are pictures of the bulbil planters in June - they look great!

little bulbils in a planter at garlic goodness growing natural garlic and seasonal vegetables near innisfail ab big bulbils in a planter at garlic goodness growing natural garlic and seasonal vegetables near innisfail ab

Everything is grown outside in our garden without fertilizers or sprays of any kind.

I just uploaded a video showing how to make garlic puree.

peeled garlic cloves in January at garlic goodness growing natural garlic and seasonal vegetables in red deer county ab

Cotton Bags:

We are excited about some cotton bags that I made. I have a bit of a thing about plastic, so we need to have a good alternative available for our customers. The bags are 100% cotton and totally washable - the fabric has been preshrunk in our washer and dried in the dryer. I'm sure we all use reusable grocery bags, but I often wish I could throw them in the washing machine, so that's what I had in mind when choosing fabric - and economy, of course! We picked out a few low-cost prints to ensure the price would be very reasonable.

cotton bag at garlic goodness growing natural garlic and seasonal vegetables near innisfail ab

Garlic Pincushions:

We do have garlic pincushions for sale. They are $25 and are totally handmade by me and are my original design 😊 Please send an email if you’d like more information about the pincushions.


 garlic pincushion from garlic goodness growing natural garlic and seasonal vegetables near innisfail ab
Dish Clothes:

I'm knitting some cotton dishcloths with a Highland motif! Can you see the horns? I've revised the pattern a bit and plan to knit a bunch of these dishcloths in time for the garlic season 2020 - if you have a colour you'd like me to knit for you please send me an email!

Scottish Highland dishcloth at garlic goodness in red deer county ab  highland cow dishcloth at garlic goodness near innisfail ab highland cow dishcloth at garlic goodness near innisfail ab

Newspaper Pots:

One of the best innovations we’ve tried in the last couple of years is our newspaper pots. We start seeds usually in peat pellets or flats of soil and then when they’re well sprouted and need more room and some dirt we put the pellets or rooted soil into a dirt-filled newspaper pot where they continue to grow until they’re ready to go out to the garden.

Newspaper pots go straight into planters or the garden so there seems to be very little transplant shock. Roots grow easily through the paper when they’re ready to, and the newspaper composts over the season. Everything I’ve read says that the ink on the paper is no problem for the plants or the soil. If a plant seems cramped in its pot you simply put soil in a bigger pot and put the smaller pot into the larger one without removing the smaller one, then put the whole thing in the garden. If the pot gets weak from a long season indoors or if one waters a lot and the pot seems shaky it’s easy to put it into another pot, again without removing the first pot. There is no disruption of the roots with these pots. Another super feature is that you can feel how moist the pot is - you can feel it from the outside, which is really useful. I can find it difficult to know when seedlings need water, but there is no such difficulty when you can see and feel the
moisture.

I made a video showing how to make the pots and there is another video showing the box in a square form, which makes it easier to see the tucks. There is another short video showing the geranium cutting in a newspaper box.


newspaper posts at garlic goodness growing natural garlic and seasonal vegetables near innisfail ab newspaper pots at garlic goodness growing natural garlic and seasonal vegetables near innisfail ab tomato transplant in a newspaper pot at garlic goodness growing natural garlic and seasonal vegetables near innisfail ab


Our Red Deer County address is 35540 RR12

Lorraine & Kevin Bannister

403-506-2129

farm@garlicgoodness.ca




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