We planted our 2015-16 field on October 3rd & 4th this year. It was two long days, but a great crew of helpers made it possible! A little over 28,000 cloves went into the ground- with the field size a tad over an acre of land.
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Things have been busy at Tamarack Garlic Farm the past few weeks between attending the local farmers markets and shipping garlic across the United States. As we wind down with this past seasons produce, we are gearing up for the next! This week will bring plowing our next cover crop under and beginning to prepare the soil for our 2016 crop!
We have met great people at the Farmer's Markets in Galesville, Trempealeau, Onalaska, and La Crosse, and just want to say thanks to everyone who has supported us in this endeavor the past year- whether you helped in the heat during harvest, picked scapes in the rain, purchased one bulb or several hundred pounds. We couldn't have done it without you! At Tamarack Garlic Farm we provide a nice selection of garlic seed and eating garlic. For most growers, garlic seed is considered to be bulbs that are 2" in diameter or larger. We "grade" or size our bulbs in 5 different ranges. 1.5" is known as "Culinary" and great for cooking or making garlic powder or salts; 1.75" is considered "Eating" garlic and is great for garlic chefs and home cooking enthusiasts; we also have sizes of 2", 2.25" and 2.5" which are all considered garlic seed. If you are looking to buy garlic seed, make sure to let us know and we will get you the largest sizes remaining. As of today we still have around 900 lbs of nice sized garlic seed.
Our Garlic Seed is a high quality product that is sized above the average compared to other growers. When we grade the bulbs we slide them through a "sizing board" that has multiple nails spaced exactly 1.5, 1.75, 2, 2.25 and 2.5" apart. Bulbs are slid into the "v" and with a quick spin the smallest diameter (between the cloves) makes contact with the nails. So a "2 inch bulb" is a generous 2" +. We hope you check out our online store by clicking the "Buy Garlic" button at the top of the page. It is the last week of August, we have all of our garlic ready to go... except about 5 crates of Siberian needs cleaning (which we are not looking forward to) and we also have a few strings of NY White left hanging in the barn. We have the intention of making more braids. Our braids include 12 NY White bulbs and we sell them for $25 per. Some other big orders are in the works... we hope to leap over 50% sold this coming week. We are very pleased with our "Made in the USA" gourmet garlic. The weight of the bulbs now seems to be stabilizing and isn't loosing very much anymore. Today inventory was updated as we hope to be ready for a garlic rush in the month of September.
Over the last 3 months we have done 5 garlic farm tours. Just recently we met a father and daughter looking to start their "garlic deam". We are now approaching the end our 1st year in this special farming endeavor and hope to finish off strong. We feel we have our garlic very competitively priced with lots of large sized seed stock remaining. We also have a nice selection of eating garlic (1.75") and culinary (1.5") remaining. You can order online here or check us out a the Galesville Farmer's Market on Saturdays. It you drop into Winona, Minnesota's Bluff Country Co-op or Rochester Wholesale Fruit.... we have 1/2 lb garlic packages available for sale there as well. The last string of garlic has been cut down out of the barn! We've been busy (like some 12+ hour days) shaking dirt, trimming roots, removing the outer layer of the garlic, and sorting it by size getting the final product ready for our customers! Once the garlic is prepped and ready, we've been busy the last two days filling orders and shipping them across the USA! We plan on doing some Farmer's Markets over the next few weeks too, so you can get your garlic fix...or you can order from the comfort of your home at www.TamarackGarlicFarm.com!
It feels like things have gotten even busier after harvest! Between getting our scale certified for Farmers Markets, finalizing packaging options, lining up straw for fall bedding, entering garlic into the local county fair...not to mention cleaning, sizing, and sorting the garlic!
With the help of a GREAT crew, we pulled and hung are garlic in the shed! We harvested July 3 -4, and took a break the next few days because of rain, and then harvested with a vengeance July 8, 9 , and 10th. We filled all but 2 rows of wire in the 50' x 100' drying shed, and are now contemplating where to store more garlic if we were to grow any more in future years!
We began harvest on Friday, July 1st with our one softneck variety, NY White. Since then we have finished harvesting 5 more varieties (Metechi, Asian Tempest, Music, Great Northern White, and Bogatyr) with help of some great friends and family. Before harvest started, we spent a day constructing a set of stairs to get into the drying barn and also our wire grid system for hanging the bundles of 10 to dry. We learned 14 ga electric fence wire over a 28 foot span needs some reinforcing. We've also recently learned how to count bulbs and tie knots really fast. Our Bed Shaper has been converted into bed lifter for the mean time and looks to need some gauge wheels to help control the depth of cut. It takes quick and frequent adjusting of the tractor lever to maintain the proper depth.
We've been busy telling people our story and informing them about the potential of garlic scapes this week at Farmer's Markets in Holmen, Trempealeau, and Galesville. Until this week, I've always been on the buying end at farmer's markets, and now "on the other side the table" I can tell you it's just as fun talking with the customer suggesting what they can do with the product.
I will admit that most people in West-Central Wisconsin that we've met this week have never heard or seen a scape, so the sales pitch for us was almost rather exhausting, yet fun at the same time. We'll likely do a few more markets with scapes, then take a hiatus from the markets while we're in garlic harvest mode. Rochester Wholesale Fruit of Winona and Midtown Foods have been selling our scapes to customers, along with getting a nice shout-out from Cam at Elmaro Vineyard has been great for local exposure too. We've picked the majority of our scapes, and couldn't have done it without our scape harvest crew! So yeah... the line in the picture is pointing really close to the garlic farm. I don't think we need 5"+ of rain all at once....
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About our blog...This blog serves as a place to highlight the events that happen at Tamarack Garlic Farm through the year. Archives
February 2018
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