UPDATE: Sold out of everything but German White. Sorry. What German White is left is being sold through the Willow Marsh Farm Store and FarmieMarket-Saratoga.

It’s that time of year again!  We’re cleaning and bagging our garlic and we’ll be attending the Hudson Valley  Garlic Festival in Saugerties at the end of the month.

We’re sorry to anyone who was hoping to see us in Bennington.  We reduced our planting by roughly half this year, so we made the strategic decision to just attend Saugerties.  We love the Bennington Festival (and actually went as tourists), so I suspect we’ll be back someday.

So what are we bringing this year?  Well it’s most of the usual suspects for us, but here goes.  Also…All of the major varieties (ie above the variety pack line) tested negative for Nematode by the Cornell labs.  We can provide the email we received stating that if you wish to see it.

Available in Increments of 1/2 pound:

GERMAN WHITE (Porcelain)  4-6 large cloves – This is our old reliable.  Consistently big heads with consistently big cloves.  Raw, this packs a fairly sharp punch.  If you like your pesto to have kick, this is a nice choice.  Cooked, this is a favorite for whole head roasting.  The large cloves make it easy to dig out all of that sweet garlic to spread on your bread.  If you’re growing for the first time, this is a great choice.

SPANISH ROJA (Rocambole)  7-10 cloves – People often describe this as the garlic with “true garlic” flavor.  I usually use the word robust in describing it.  It definitely has a more complex character than German White, and is our hands down favorite for cooking.  In Italian cooking or paired with a steak, it can’t be beat.

MARJEAN (Rocambole?) 7-10 cloves – Do you like a mystery?  We initially purchased our stock from the The Garlic Devas.  Marjean was named for their neighbors Marty and Jean who had grown the variety for years and years.  They’ve moved on to Western MA and appear to have dropped the variety when they moved. What hooked me on this variety was that it was very mild raw, but had a very strong and lingering garlic flavor.  Since getting to our field, the character has changed.  It still has the great garlic flavor, but it now has a late and lingering HEAT.  Our soil has decent sulphur content which accounts for the new found heat.  The bottom line is that this is a great garlic, but it is a bit of a chameleon.  As such, I have a hard time describing it.

MUSIC (Porcelain) 4-6 cloves Limited Quantities 2012 - An outstanding plant producing very large bulbs. Strong, robust plants stand out in the garden. A sweet and substantial garlic when baked. Hot when consumed raw. There is much debate as to whether this is German White by another name.  Based on the growth habits (a bit taller than GW) and the cooking traits (even sweeter), I do think this is a different strain, but it is in the same ballpark.  An excellent garlic. We’re still building up stock in Music, so we have limited quantities this year.

Only Available in 1/2 pound Variety Packs in 2012

GERMAN RED (Rocambole) 4-8 cloves – A full-bodied, strong and spicy rocambole garlic that reliably produces large, satiny white and purple heads. The easy-to-peel cloves are wrapped in fawn colored skins.  Currently building stock.

RUSSIAN RED (Rocambole) 8-12 cloves - Large copper-veined, purple blotched bulbs. Strong flavor with a sweet aftertaste. Brought to the Northwest by Russian Doukhobor immigrants in the 1900s. Currently building stock.

Not Available this year…but we’re working on it

UKRAINIAN RED (Rocambole) 7-10 cloves – This rocambole has a buttery finish that makes it a perfect pair with pasta dishes or as a complement to bread.  We had a crop failure in 2010 (too wet) and are slowly bringing this one back.  Probably in 2014.

BOGATYR (Marbled Purple Stripe) – I’m still getting a handle on this one, but I’ve been wanting to try a purple stripe.  Tried a sample and liked it (reminded me of Marjean…hmmmmm).  I’ll start growing this one out.  May take a couple of years and will show up in variety packs first.

If there’s another variety you’d like to see us try, let us know.  We’re all ears.  For the moment, we are sticking to hardnecks…

Prices for 2012:

Our general rate for 2012 will be $8/pound.  Variety packs run a bit more, but they do take more time/work to assemble. Same as last year.  You can contact us to buy from us locally.  We can put out your order in front of our farm stand when we know you’re coming.

First off, if you don’t know a garlic scape is, here’s a picture:

This is basically the flower stalk of a hard neck garlic plant.  It’s got the consistency and snap of asparagus, but tastes of garlic.  In general it’s milder than the garlic bulb itself, but still can pack a wallop.  I was eating them raw last night at a bar (long story) and everyone within a 10 foot radius of me knew it.

So the big question is…what can you do with these?  I’m going to share my favorite two things to do with them.  Both are simple and quick and may be hard to call recipes.  I’ll also include a few links to actual recipes with real instructions, if you’re not as freewheeling as me.

Before any of these , I do suggest removing the “flower” and above from the scape.  This part can be too fibrous.

Grilled Scapes

This couldn’t be simpler and my core suggestion is to prepare the scapes in the same way you would do asparagus on the grill.  Over medium heat, brush them periodically with olive oil and turn them so that they don’t burn (unless you like burn). Salt and Pepper to taste.

You can also chop them up and wrap them in foil with some butter.  This method cooks them faster and is less prone to burning.

The end result is sweet with a mild garlic flavor. So good!

Garlic Scape Pesto

This one’s good for freezing, so if you make too much, you can just freeze it and pull it out on some dismal winter day.

1. Take a bunch of scapes and trim off the flowers.
2. Put a handful in the food processer.
3. Turn on the food processer.
4. Slowly add olive oil until the pesto is at a consistency where all of the scapes grind up, but it isn’t runny.
5. Add salt/pepper to taste
6. Repeat until you have all the pesto you want

Optional: Add Parmesan/Romano as desired once you have that consistency right.

Note:  I recommend freezing without the cheese if you do add it, as I think the cheese suffers with the freezing.  I actually prefer it without cheese, and think it makes an awesome dip or pizza base.

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I realize this is brief, but the internet has some great recipes for them.  They’re also prime for pickling if you like to pickle things.

Happy eating!

Well…it was a tough year.  The weather seldom cooperates, but 2011 was especially ugly.  It started out wet, dried out for a few weeks and then stayed wet into 2012.  The pests and weeds loved 2011.  Me…not so much. That’s where I stop complaining because there are folks that were wiped out with the likes of Irene and Lee.  I can’t compare my problems to theirs in any reasonable way.

There were other things that happened that I never bothered to chronicle here.  The Allis-Chalmers D17 died on it’s last scheduled trip out to the field in late October.  We were finally able to get it towed back in on January 6th.  In the process I got minor frostbite on two of my toes, but that’s a different story…

I spent some more time and I learned a LOT about how the cylinders fire in an internal combustion engine, as well as how carburetion works.  I won’t say I understand it fully, but after a lot of struggling I did get the tractor started.  I need to spend some more time fiddling to get it running well, but I think I understand what I need to do.  Time will bear that out.

So what’s on tap for 2012. It’s looking like we’re going to be doing less actual farming and more getting the farm in working order.

• We are NOT doing the Ballston Spa Farmer’s Market this year.  Our garden is going to be a great deal smaller and really just for us.  If it looks like we’ll have excess, we’ll have to find takers/sell in front of the farm stand.
• Our garlic is in the ground, so we will be doing a festival as long as these poor fall/winter conditions haven’t done us in.
• We’ll probably do pumpkins because we like doing pumpkins.
• Ditto with butternut squash.
• Assuming we can get picking help, we will be selling our blueberries from the front of the stand/by pre-order.  More details on that as we figure it out.

Here’s my laundry list of goals for cleanup/sprucing

• Clean out farm stand.
• Clean out garage.
• Fix barn foundation.
• Paint garage.

Will all of this happen?  Probably not.  I have goals for my own house as well and those have to happen.

Among all of the things I do, I’m also the current Vice President for the Milton Grange #685. As I talked about in a previous post, the damage caused by Irene and Lee to farmers in Northeast has been, in many cases, devastating.  Kathleen and I have donated some money to the NOFA-VT emergency fund as a percentage of our sales from the Bennington Garlic Fest, but we also hoped we could make an impact closer to home as well.  Well here it is.  The Milton Grange is teaming up with the Greenfield Grange to host a Wine/Cheese/Cracker tasting.  Here are all the details:

The Milton Grange #685 in collaboration with the Greenfield Grange #807 will be hosting a Wine Tasting at the Saratoga Winery on Saturday November 12th at 7pm to benefit the Schoharie County Community Action Program in the wake of Irene and Lee. The funds will be earmarked for farm recovery.

We will have cheese from Willow Marsh Farm and Crackers from Saratoga Crackers.  If you haven’t tried either of these, then you don’t know what you’re missing.  Amazing stuff.

We hope to see a lot of you there!

You can contact Shana at 518-744-3834 or via email at gfldgrange807@hotmail.com to purchase tickets.  Tickets are $20 in advance and $25 at the door.

The title of this post is redundant.  I’ve come to realize for the short time I’ve been doing this that there is no such thing as farming without adaptation.  I’ve also come to realize that the reason I love to farm is BECAUSE of all of the seemingly impossible challenges thrown my way.  In any given year, the nature of those challenges can change drastically, so what worked last season probably won’t be applicable next season.  It might, however, be applicable in 3 or 4 years.

As it stands right now, my current challenge is finding a field in which I can plant my garlic. There’s plenty of ground, but the overriding trouble is that none of it is dry enough to plow. I did have a field plowed for the garlic, but when I went out there after our last 2.5 inch rainfall, the field was porridge. With another 1″+ forecast for Wednesday into Thursday, I’m basically stuck. Another fun fact according to this precipitation map, we’re somewhere between 8-12″ over for the last 90 days. That includes Irene and Lee…Also note that we’re not as bad off as others.

With all of that said, I can’t and won’t complain about it (you can read some previous posts for some of that bellyaching). This is simply a challenge, and I’m going to meet it. If it means that I’m on my hands and knees planting garlic in mid-November through a thin layer of frost in a field that I didn’t prepare properly, then so be it.

Like the saying goes…come hell or high water.  We’ve got the high water and I’m gonna give it hell.

It’s that time again! Kathleen and I will be in Saugerties this coming weekend (24th and 25th) selling garlic at the 2011 Hudson Valley Garlic Festival. We’re in the same booth space as last year (B95) and we hope to see you there!

We brought more variety packs this year due to their popularity over the last two years. Unfortunately, we had some spring flooding that affected our Ukrainian Red, so it only appears in the variety packs.  In any case, we’ve got plenty of garlic to sell!

Keep your fingers crossed for perfect weather. Right now it looks that way!!

Most farmers are prepared for some spring flooding, but for most, that’s not the time of year when there’s “money in the ground”. For vegetable farmers, there was a lot to lose right now. For a farmer who needs to bring in that crop of corn to feed their cows for the winter, this is absolutely devastating. Organic farmers who had the river rise up and swamp their fields also have to contend with the problem as to what was in that river when it flowed over top. That field probably can’t be certified organic again for at least 3 years.

Farming is not an easy life. I say this with the full distance of being a part-timer with relatively little on the line. I only make enough money farming to pay for the farming. My bills are paid by my 9 to 5. I also say this knowing full well that deep down, I really want farm life, warts and all. And even though my farm got off easy, Irene makes me think twice about that want.

What it really does though, is to make me want to figure out a way to help the farmers who have been kicked in the teeth by this thing. The truth is that farmers are a resilient lot. That comes from a life that is full of uncertainty and risks.  Most (probably not all) will be back next year bent, but not beaten.

Kathleen and I are going to be going to the Bennington Garlic Festival this weekend. We’ve decided to donate 5% of our sales to the NOFA-VT Farmer Emergency Fund. When Saugerties rolls around at the end of the month, we’ll be looking for a more NY centric version of the same thing.  This is a small gesture, but we hope that some of you can make a donation as well and make it a bigger gesture.

Beyond giving money, do your best to patronize your local farmer.

Farms are the ultimate security for a community.  I have no doubt that some of the communities that are currently cut off from the rest of the world in Vermont are finding out how important it is to have a local food source.

My 2¢.

Truth be told, this has not been our best year. This spring was very, very wet and unfortunately, we wound up losing some garlic (primarily Ukrainian Red) to oversaturated fields. Because of that, we’ll likely be offering only German White and Spanish Roja in our usual 1/2 pound bags. We may have a small amount of Marjean that way as well. Otherwise, we’re going to try and get it together so that we have variety packs with a bit of Ukrainian.

This actually dovetails into our future plans…we’re downsizing to concentrate on raising our toddler for now.  So what we have this year is likely to be what we have for the next few years. We will likely cut back to a single festival as well. We have yet to decide which festival that is. We really love Bennington because of it’s laid back, but brisk pace. So we’ll see.

Anyhow, we’d love to see you there.

If there’s one thing I love it’s a crazy idea. This was a crazy idea.  For the most part, I enjoy watching other people enact these things….from a distance.

FARMING WITH DYNAMITE!

This year has been like a bee sting to the eye (see left).

It’s not worth sugarcoating…it’s been a hard year of farming.  I’ve slowly come to realize this year that it may not be in our best interest to continue farming commercially.  I LOVE LOVE LOVE the challenges that farming presents, but it’s been driven home to me that my family and (unfortunately) paying the bills have to take precedence.  I could sacrifice time with family and be a better farmer, but I just don’t want to do that.  In past years, I’ve been able to take a lot of my time off from work to augment farming time, but that can’t happen to the same extent this year because of the load I’m facing at work.   At the end of the day, I need to pay the bills.

You might ask why I don’t just make the jump and make my job farming…Trust me, I’ve thought about it.  I see a path to making it profitable enough that we could subsist on it, but the biggest stumbling block I keep hitting would be affordable health insurance for my family. I can’t bring myself to cut the cord.

For now, I’m a bad farmer.  I’m letting the weeds win this year so that I can enjoy my family like most middle class Americans do.  I refuse to feel guilty about that, though it does pain me some every task I miss.

What this probably means for next year is that we will be doing far less farm wise.  No Farmers Market.  At most 1/2 the garlic (and only one festival).  Growing for ourselves.  I want to spend these years off from farming getting better at it at a smaller scale.  Then, when I can come back to it, I can come back full force.