Welcome to the Winter season, Farm-ily!
And just like that, we’re harvesting for CSA again. Farming is aptly described as “circular”: as soon as one task or crop is finished, it’s often time to start planning for its return. Before we flip one page of the calendar, we begin work on the next. Garlic, planted a full season in advance, is one of our first endeavors for the year to come. It needs to be tucked in now to slumber underground until it’s harvested for your veggie boxes in spring. Garlic is a labor of love from planting to harvesting, curing to cleaning, and back to planting again. Those little cloves represent a huge number of man hours spanning season after season.
In addition to the many hands needed to prepare it, garlic requires good timing. Because it grows well across many agricultural zones in the United States, that good timing can vary widely. For some farmers, careful studies of the weather forecast and a “gut feeling” tell them when to plant. For some, intuition is closer to superstition. One of our farming friends nearby only plants her garlic during the last game of the World Series, no matter what! In milder autumns like the one this year, we plant a bit later. Ideally, garlic goes into warm ground and then cools soon after. A little heat helps to foster root growth, but if planted too early, garlic can sprout in December. It’s the long nap in the cold between planting and spring that we’re aiming for with our almanacs and calendars.
Once the date is set, the hard necks are snapped and the silky paper peeled back. The cloves are soaked first in water, then in rubbing alcohol. The purpose of the soak is twofold, adding critical moisture and reducing any unwelcome microbial or fungal stowaways on the garlic’s surface. Some farms do a single soak in vodka for the same reason. Ultimately, the goal is a healthier spring crop that lasts longer in storage for next year’s CSA members. When the time comes, we’ll harvest a plant grown from each clove, bundle and tie it to dry, and then cure it under massive fans before sending it your way.
Garlic is an absolute essential in the kitchen, required for everything from marinara to curry. Likewise, our members are a critical cog in the wheel that turns season after season at the Farm. Without you, all the best laid plans would lack purpose. Just as we tend to the garlic in all seasons and stages, we work and prepare for feeding our Farm-ily all year long. The winter season is made warmer by your company and cheer. When we think of what we’re most grateful for, we think of all of you (and pie). From the bottom of our hearts, thank you for another season of growing food and community, together.
Eat Well and Be Well,
Ashley, Collin, John, Alexandra, and Finn the Farm Dog
