Organic Seed Garlic
No Garlic for sale in 2011
August 27 Update
We are sorry to have to let our potential customers know that we will have no garlic to sell this year. Customers who had pre-ordered already know part of the story.
Last weekend, we weighed the garlic. On the surface, it looked much larger and healthier than any we had grown before. Seed grade percentage appeared to be between 80-90% for most varieties.
On Tuesday, we completed our final weight calculations to make sure we could fill all existing orders before taking new ones. On Tuesday evening, Dave started cleaning the garlic in preparation for shipping. He got suspicious when he saw some small spots of grey coloration on some of the inner paper wrappers exposed after cleaning. He cracked the bulbs and peeled the cloves of many varieties and found evidence of disease in nearly every bulb.
On Wednesday morning we delivered samples to our local university extension office. They sent it overnight express to a plant pathologist in northern Maine specializing in garlic. On Thursday, the pathologist called us to deliver the verdict: Common mold due to too much humidity during drying.
This is the first year we have relied on our off-grid farm to dry the garlic. We dried the harvest in raised racks in our shade-covered greenhouse, with fans on it all day powered by our solar panels. At night, we had to turn the fans off because there wasn’t enough power in our batteries to run them.
Unfortunately, our efforts turned out to be insufficient. We have had some humid weather since the harvest, we are 11 miles from the coast so fog often drifts in overnight, and of course the greenhouse has a dirt floor. All of these factors meant that just enough moisture had been seeping back into the greenhouse at night to keep the garlic from drying. The outer paper was dry, the innermost skin was not.
So first, the bad news: We will be lucky to salvage a handful of seed stock for ourselves to replant, with nothing for sale this year and, most probably, next year. We have spent the last few days sorting through the garlic bulb by bulb and, when we find a hopeful-looking one, clove by clove, to get what we can to replant. Unfortunately, the biggest bulbs of course dried the least! So far we are finding about 1 - 3% good smaller stuff that, through the luck of being close to a fan or some other factor, dried out without any sign of damage. Better than nothing.
An expensive lesson for us, and a cautionary tale to all growers: Humidity control is important!
But there is good news: No botrytis, no grey mold, no white mold, no bloat nematode. Our fields are healthy and so, it seems, was the planting stock when we pulled it. And we have a great UMaine extension office in Waldo County that quickly helped us diagnose the problem. Thanks to Rick Kersbergen, the best extension officer possible, and to Steve Johnson, the pathologist who examined the garlic and took so much time to answer our never-ending questions.
And some more good news: What wonderful customers we have! We received wonderful messages of sympathy and understanding from many of you. And we heard a few tales of woe that put our own little catastophe in perspective. While humidity did us in, some in the south had terrible problems with drought. And we know that bloat nematode has hit many, many farmers in the northeast. Our hearts go out to you.
And even more good news: We are not giving up! We will buy some seed stock this year and start again. It will take us a couple of years to get the garlic to size up and to have enough both to replenish our own stock, and to sell seed stock to customers. We may have a small amount of seed to sell in 2013, and plan to be fully back in business by 2014 .... with a proper drying area, more batteries or a generator and, we hope, a little more wisdom.
VARIETIES BELOW NOT AVAILABLE IN 2011, look for similar varieties in 2013
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P O R C E L A I N
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Georgian Crystal, German Extra
Hardy, German White, Music, Rosewood
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R O C A M B O L E
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Killarney Red, Metechi,
Phillips, Russian Red, Spanish Roja (small
quantities)
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P U R P L E S T R I P E
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Bogatyr, Chesnok Red (small
quantities), Persian Star (Samarkand), Siberian Red
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A R T I C H O K E
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Inchelium Red |
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A S I A T I C
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Japanese (small quantities) |
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S I L V E R S K I N
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Silver Rose (small quantities) |
For detailed information about garlic varieties go to the Garlic Seed Foundation, run by long-time organic garlic producer David Stern in Rose, New York.
P R I C E S (also see discounts below)
Seed Garlic
49 lbs or less $16/lb
50-99 lbs: $14/lb
100+ lbs: $12/lb
Table Garlic
$6/lb for any quantity. Minimum order 3 lbs. If you want particular varieties sorted for planting add a $7 handling fee. (Yes, you can plant table garlic, but it is a lot smaller than seed garlic so it will yield smaller bulbs.)
D i s c o u n t s ! (Apply to seed and table garlic)
Early Bird: 5% off all orders on or before September 9th
Returning Customers: Extra 5% off all orders
MOFGA Members: Extra 10% off all orders
That means that if you ordered from us last year AND you’re a MOFGA member AND you order (and pay) by September 9, you get 20% off!
S H I P P I N G & P A Y M E N T
We accept checks and PayPal. We appreciate payment as soon as possible after you order. We will hold orders without payment for as long as we can, but if someone else puts in a paid order and our supplies are low, we cannot guarantee your order. Don’t worry, we’ll remind you before we let your order go.
We will start shipping during the second week of September. Shipping is through Fed Ex Ground and is not included in the price. We will also have a pick-up station near the MOFGA Common Ground Fair at the end of each day the fair is on. Or, you can pick up your order at our farm. Call or email us for details.
H O W T O O R D E R
It's simple! Call, email, or snail mail us at the address below and let us know what you want. We will call or email you to confirm your order and to let you know shipping costs. We will email you a PayPal link if you want to pay through PayPal.
We hope your gardens are green and we look forward to hearing from you!
David McDaniel & Heather Selin
Earth Dharma Farm
78 East Chase Road
Jackson, Maine 04921
Tel 207 722 3386
Email heather@earthdharmafarm.com
www.earthdharmafarm.com
