Throughout every season we encounter bumps in the road of production. This year felt more like a sucker punch, but the fight isn’t over. After some recovery, we are feeling more ready than every for the final quarter of the growing season.
As the wheels turn deeper into fall I am astounded at our recovering greens. Arugula and mustards have never tasted better. Leeks, fennel, and celery are glowing with vitality built throughout the summer. While the tomatoes, peppers, and melons might be wrapped up, a whole new chapter dawns upon us.
With fall comes garlic planting. After a rough crop last year we took time to rebuild and invigorate our seed stock. This year led to a bumper crop and we are pleased to once again offer seed garlic to both gardeners and farmers.
There are a few types of garlic we grow and select, each with unique traits and habits.
Hardnecks- Hardneck garlic is prized in the backyard garden or market farm due to scapes. The scape is an added bonus from growing the crop that is harvested earlier in the season. Hardnecks are especially flavorful and easy to peel. For those who like big cloves we offer Music and Vietnam Red. Stronger flavored are the Purple Glazer and Uzbekistan garlic.
Softnecks- Softneck garlic lacks a scape which makes it better suited to braiding and longterm storage. Inchelium Red is our classic production garlic with large heads and cloves. Siskiyou Purple is another large garlic with delicate purple blushes on the outside wrapper. Both are an excellent, high yielding, addition to the garden.
We account for a pound of garlic seed planting 20 row feet. The spacing we have used is 12” between rows and 6” between bulbs inter-row. This year we are going to experiment with tighter spacing on heavily mulched beds.
Orders will be shipping by the end of the month, just in time for planting. Speaking of planting now is a great time to prepare a garlic bed. We use forks to open the soil to a depth of 6 or mores inches and apply a generous amount of compost. After planting we will mulch the bed with mostly weed free organic straw.
As we turn the corner, refueled and ready, I find myself excited for the remainder of the year. I needed to be shook awake and now am finding a well of optimism towards this season. We are far from done and have so many more surprises coming. Thanks for your support Folks, couldn’t do it without you.
Farm Store Hours:
Sunday- NEW! 10am-2pm
Monday, Tuesday-Closed
Wednesday, Thursday, Friday- 10-3pm
Saturday- At the Larimer County Farmers Market 9-1
What is stocked in the Farm Store?
Greens- Kale, radicchio, malbar spinach, broccoli, cauliflower, cut your own herbs, arugula, spicy mix
Roots- Red beets, yellow and red onions, carrots, summer leeks, garlic
Fruits- Cantaloupe melons, home grown sweet corn, cherry and heirloom tomatoes, organic plums, peaches, tomatillos
Seed- Garlic seed
Local Products- NEW! Lehi Ranch Grass-Fed Beef, KREAM Kimchi, Bread Chic Sourdough, Fox Den Coffee, Siante Coffee, Bee Squared Honey (from the farm), Jodar Eggs, Garden of Oz Dog Treats