Garlic Harvest

We harvested our garlic over the weekend. One variety was ready and the other three varieties we grow could have stayed in the ground for another week but Robbie suspected he was going to start rolling* since the McCall base has pretty much emptied out to spike bases in Colorado, Utah, and Nevada. Sure enough, he was given a division position on a Utah fire on Monday and I’m not sure when he’ll make it home again so it’s really great to have this crop harvested and curing on the racks in our big workshop building. It’s our biggest and best harvest yet! We had great success this year which is probably a sign of our seed adapting to our soil and the overall health of the soil here. This will be our fourth year carrying our own garlic seed over into the next season and it just keeps getting better, richer, more complex in flavor.

This garlic crop was grown under contract for a fermented garlic company in Sun Valley as well as for our own consumption (we eat SO MUCH garlic), and seed stock but we do hope to be able to offer you garlic for sale in an online farm store next summer. We continue to expand and develop our garlic plot here and as our knowledge grows so does the quality of our harvest. Stay tuned! We hope to make your garlic dreams come true!

And since I know some of you will ask about her, the new kitten is Roxanne, as in, “you don’t have to put on the red light“. Our friends found her mostly dead in a puddle of water on the side of a road in McCall. They brought her back from the brink of death, gentled her, but didn’t want to own a cat so we brought her to the farm. She loves it here and is a pesky little savage. Mew mew!

*Rolling, in fire lexicon, refers to a two week long work segment for a smokejumper or hotshot crew. Your wildland firefighters tend to roll for two weeks at a time with two days off between rolls. Sometimes they will extend to three week long rolls but two weeks at a time is the usual. When we say “we’re rolling” as a fire family, it means Robbie is on the road, in the sky, or spiked out on a remote fire. Once we start rolling, we’re in the thick of it for the rest of the fire season, hanging on for dear life. Bear with me here as I drop down into a lower gear and simply try my hardest to do my very best every single day.

Comments

  1. *Of course* you are doing your very best every single day. This is what I pray for you, that you be given strength to bear up under all you must accomplish every single day, plus be able to unwind and rest come the nightfall.

    Hello and welcome to the farm, little Roxanne!!

    Oh, and, that last photo. A new postcard/print would be lovely, please and thank you.

    xx

  2. nathalie carles says

    I haven’t harvest my garlic yet, it is my favorite thing to grow, very satisfying, not too much work, love to eat it…you have a huge amount and your crop is beautiful!

  3. Gorgeous harvest!! Was garlic something you previously wanted to grow large scale, or was it the result of trial and error testing to see what performed best in your soil/climate?

    • Great question. We knew garlic would grow well here and we have tried a handful of varieties and are slowly narrowing down which varieties we prefer. It’s also a great niche market crop — organic heriloom garlic sells for about $22/lb.

  4. nandini jani says

    Gosh yum…. I need some of of those yummy bulbs, kitty and piglets:)

    😘😘

  5. Mustang Sally says

    I’ll never forget when you called him a “rat fink.” LOL
    I’m keeping tabs on you, ya know.
    So good to see you and Robins the horses and chickens and garlic and silversmithing and life on the river.
    I just had to, that’s all.
    Still waiting for you to come chase mustangs with me.
    Heart

  6. Catherine Chandler says

    What a bountiful harvest! I so love the smell of garlic, but it is on my “allergy” list, so I don’t eat it often. When I do, it is far more pungent to me than to others! I definitely love a good roasted garlic, though!

    Love to you, and safety to Robbie! I thought of him the other day as I was stalking a bumblebee that had MASSIVE chunks of pollen on its legs, just like those jumpsuits. I had to laugh and send up gratitude to our smokejumpers.

    One day at a time, one breath at a time some days <3

  7. I love seeing a man with a cat. <3