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.
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 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.
We made a video of frying potatoes – just in case anyone wonders how we do it.
We've been using scapes in our marinade and loving it.
Highland Beef:
The Highland cattle sides are sold for 2019, but please let us know if you’re interested in purchasing one next year.
Email for more information or if you have any questions.
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:
Here are pictures of the bulbil
planters in June - they look great!
Everything is grown outside in our garden without fertilizers or sprays of any kind.
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.
I'm
knitting some cotton dishcloths with a Highland motif! Can you
see the horns?
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.
Our Red Deer County address is 35540 RR12
Lorraine & Kevin Bannister
403-506-2129
farm@garlicgoodness.ca
Member of the Grey Wooded Forage Association
Member of the Alberta Farm Fresh Producers Association
Copyright © 2019 garlic goodness