In the past, I more or less followed the path set out by Herrick Kimball.  His book on making garlic powder is great and there are purportedly only a few left directly from him.  But I’m never content with set processes and usually feel the need to tinker around the edges.  One big problem I had with his process was that my dehydrator does not have deep enough trayspace to accommodate whole heads like he uses for his initial drying step.  I tried various things including soaking the cloves in hot water for 2 minutes to loosen the sheath.  That was messy and probably only marginally faster.  Another issue I had was the slicing blade on my food processor.  Simply put, I found it didn’t make a clean slice.  Some of the garlic got pulped and a lot got stuck in funny places inside the food processor.  I used a knife instead.  This slowed things down significantly.

Last night that all changed.  I decided to make a small batch with some of my remaining (halfway decent) garlic.  Yeah..I’m finding it pretty incredible that I still have garlic that’s ok at this point of the year, but it gives me something to experiment with.  So what did I do?

1. I bought one of these at A Different Drummer’s Kitchen in Albany.   This was a case where I knew exactly what I wanted, but had my doubts as to whether someone made it.  In this case a strawberry slicer makes a fine garlic slicer.  This sped things up significantly.  I did find that it worked better with smaller cloves which solves another problem for me.  I never quite know what to do with all of the smaller stock that comes out of the field.  I’d always prefer to sell the bigger stuff which means I tend to end up with a bunch of small stuff at the end of the season.
2. I didn’t bother to remove the shell of the garlic.  It all went in the dehydrator with the garlic.   I’ve been reading The Contrary Farmer by Gene Logsdon.  This guy is my new hero.  A lot of his wisdom comes down to keeping things small, simple and smart.  In my case, I asked myself why I was removing the shell.  There’s a perfectly good (and much faster) process called winnowing that has been used for centuries for this exact task.  So once it was all dry, I took 2 large bowls and poured it from one to the other in front of a window fan I set up on my porch.  And yep. It worked and probably took me 1/100th of the time it would have taken to pull the shell off of each clove.

Now there is one step I will do the next time around and that’s cutting off the bottoms of the cloves.  I skipped it as a time saving measure, but I think that it should be added back in.

In any case, I think it was a success!

So, what did I learn this time while planting?

• The dibbler does not reach the ground when it’s mounted on the tractor.  I had the brilliant idea that I’ll pull the dibbler behind the tractor, so that my rows would be very straight.  I went as far as buying additional parts for the dibbler to adapt it to fit on my hitch.  Unfortunately, I mounted it and it just spun in the air. Doh!
• Any task that I’m going to ask others to help me with has to be done first by me.  I spent a good deal of time measuring and remeasuring to get more accurate numbers of what I was planting.  Because I spent the time, I have a great deal more confidence in my counts this year.  I’ve noticed that when I have others working for me, this kind of information gets lost.  I always appreciate the help, but I now see that I need to develop a methodology on my own before bringing others into the task.
• I can manage the whole process on my own.  That said, given my current task load, 10,000 head of garlic is a pretty realistic maximum.

As a side note, I’m hoping to make a batch of garlic powder soon.

Towards the end of the day, Kathleen and Asa surprised me.  At that point, I had 50 heads of German White to break and plant.  Kathleen and I broke all the heads and then she planted the final row while I walked around with Asa on my shoulders.  He had a blast as I ran up and down the rows.

In the end, I didn’t have time to spread any of the straw, but hopefully I can get that done in the wee hours at the start and end of the day over the next few days.  I have 4 rows covered so far.

Now for the counts of what I planted:

Music – 665
MarJean – 763
Ukranian Red – 2,739
Spanish Roja – 2,152
German White – 4,159

All these numbers are based on field measurements.  There’s no doubt they’re not 100% correct, but they’re really really close.

After wrestling with the Allis D17 and ultimately replacing a dead battery, the field finally was plowed, disked and tilled over the course of three days.  Daylight is scarce after I get out of work, so I have to do what I can with the little daylight there is.

As you can see from the picture, that bit all went well.  The bad news was the weather forecast.  They had forecast rain and snow in minor amounts for the whole weekend.  Terrible conditions.  I don’t think I’ve ever been happier that the forecast was dead wrong.  Saturday started with sun and ended with clouds with some blue sky in the distance.  We were on the edge of the cloudbank for the nastiness our neighbors to the south and east experienced.  With the additional prep work, we wound up getting 2 full rows of Ukrainian Red in.

Sunday morning, I got up slowly, but was finally in the field by 8 or so.  As you can see from the picture, I was greeted by frost.  Pushing garlic cloves through that frost layer hurts the fingers.  Lucky for me it didn’t stay frozen for too long.  I worked until about noon, getting the rest of the Ukrainian Red in, as well as all of the Music and Marjean.  At that point, it was a break for lunch with Kathleen and Asa.

After a long lunch, Kathleen joined me in the field while Asa napped and we knocked out a row and half of Spanish Roja.

At this point we have 6 full rows done and between 5 and 6 to go.  Those will happen Tuesday…until then…adieu.

Heather & Kathleen on Day 1

Well we had our first outing at a very big festival and it was a great (and exhausting) time.

Day 1: When I arrived at about 6:30 am on Saturday, I found out I made a very big rookie mistake.  We received what I thought was a parking permit for the festival.  I had given it to Kathleen so she could park close by when she arrived with Asa.  What I didn’t know is that I needed this permit to get into the gate.  The Saugerties police officer guarding the front gate was “very sympathetic to my situation,” but was unyielding.  After wandering around for about 45 minutes inside looking for someone to allow me past the gate, I opted to try a back entrance.  The truckload of garlic proved to be more convincing at that entrance.  Mistakes were made. Lessons were learned.

Despite the setback, we still had plenty of time to set up.  That was a very good thing because the moment the gates opened up, a throng of people came through.  We’ve always worked at smaller markets, so this was a very new experience for us.  Luckily our friend Heather was there to help.  We honestly couldn’t have managed with out help.  We were also setup right next to the great folks from Lindon Garlic Farm who we had met at the Bennington fest.  They’ll have a new playmate for Asa next year, so we’re going to do what we can to set up near them at Bennington.  I’ll also plug their garlic powder.  It’s killer.

Erin, Matthew, Paul & Asa

Day 2: Speaking of help, we had our good friends Matthew & Erin join us on the decidedly ickier Sunday.  It oscillated between light drizzle and actual rain all day, but the turnout still seemed pretty robust given the circumstances.  It was slower, but at the end of the day, we only came home with 9 braids and 1 half pound of garlic.  Crazy.  Other highlights of day 2 included a gentleman dressed like dracula that lurked around the fringes of our booth for a while.  Our friend Allison from Lindon garlic had a brief conversation with him that went something like this:

Dracula: Where do I get one of those things?
Allison: What?
Dracula: One of those things that you sit in.  (I think he wanted her chair)
Allison: I need to sit.  My baby is due in 5 weeks.
Dracula: (In a huff) Well I’ve been dead for years.

I don’t think I need to comment further on that….

The great thing about this is that we sold all of our garlic.  The bad thing about that is that we really don’t have any left to sell online at this point.  Our poor friends will get some less than perfect garlic this year (sorry friends).

In the end we had a great time.  We’re always learning and we strive to do it better every year.  Thanks to the old friends that came out and all the new friends that we met.  We’re planning on being there next year and look forward to seeing everyone again!

The festival runs from 10-6 on Saturday 9/26 and 10-5 on Sunday 9/27. It costs $10 to get in.  Kids 12 and under are free with an adult in tow.  There’s plenty to do and see aside from popping by and visiting us, so come and make a day of it.

Oh and our booth is B93. Stop and say hi!

For the first time we’ve grown pumpkins that are primarily for carving (as opposed to eating).  A good number of these will be going to our friend’s Catskill wedding!  Fun!

In the garlic news, we’ve posted the online store.  Only three varieties available, as that’s all we have in quantity.  The half pound bags listed are actually .57 pounds, which works out to $7/pound.

We learned a lot of things and hope to keep improving .  Matthew (pictured left) went on a brainstorming tear and gave us some great ideas, including a Garlic FAQ page.  I’ll be working on that in the coming week…so look for it soon. Page is up, if incomplete.  We’ll keep adding more.

Other important things of note.  We finished doing weight counts of what’s left to sell.  The biggest challenge we have right now in putting stuff up for sale on the web is that we don’t have any earthly clue as to how much we can/will sell at the Saugerties festival.   We’ll have it figured out in the next day or two. Because of limited seed stock, most will be sold as table stock, but you can always email us and ask.

Basket of Ukrainian Red

We’ll keep you posted.