Garlic In The Field

New York

DAVID STERN

Buckwheat is one of my favorite crops to grow: it roars from the earth within days of planting, fast to cover the weed seedlings, fills the air with a sweet, sweet scent, and at this stage of growth, provides habitat and nectar to pollinators and beneficials. In this region it is grown as an annual broadleaf grain and is very economical because we grow a lot of it in Upstate New York. At Rose Valley we grow it as a cover crop/ green manure/ plowdown which will yield 3-4 tons of organic matter at a 60 lb/ac planting rate. It is a soft and succulent plant, gently protecting the earth. The quality of the buckwheat will reflect the quality of the soil. We grow this in the summer prior to the planting of the garlic in the fall.

Before the buckwheat matures and sets seed, the field is mowed (to reduce the size of the plant material) and then lightly disked to dislodge the buckwheat roots. Oats are drilled in the field in late August and the garlic is planted through the oats in October. The oats winterkill in Upstate, becoming a dead mulch in the spring, but more importantly they provide excellent wind and water erosion control and catch the snow all winter. Bare ground planting in the fall has caused serious problems in the Northeast.

Over the past 25 years I've grown many garlics: hundreds and hundreds, sent to the Garlic Seed Foundation for evaluation, and I learned that there are indeed different "varieties," but most fall into large general categories, and most are physiologically identical in those cultivar classifications. I listened to the debates and the "name-game" called marketing, but this was not my interest.

My time was spent looking at the botany of the Allium, its culinary history, and the culture of this plant: researching planting dates and depth, fungi and fertilization, tillage and cultivation timing. If we spent more time on soil quality and structure, we'd all be growing better garlic. A marginal garlic grown on balanced, living soil will always out-produce a good variety grown on concrete!

I'm very appreciative of Dr. Volk's work because we now know the garlic types and this research, for the first time ever, allows us to perform on-farm scientific trials on 11 sites across the country, looking at the same garlic on different soils, climates, fertilizations, elevations, degree days, day length, etc. For me, these are very interesting questions.

As the Key Project Leader, my role with this grant is to work with the four other farmers in the Northeast and 6 national farmers to grow, record and photograph the garlic and send it to Dr. Volk for analysis. I shall also write a quarterly update for this website, and this farm is the 5th Northeast trial site.

I have been farming at Rose Valley since 1972, a certified organic farm since 1984, producing 30-40 row crop vegetables, bush and tree fruit, nuts, nursery stock and managed timber on glacier Lake Plain soils. I've been the Acting Director of the Garlic Seed Foundation since 1985, and enjoy buckwheat pancakes.

Recipe: Aioli (Garlic Mayo)
Web Site: www.garlicseedfoudation.info