Plant now for Great Garlic

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UPPER MIDWEST:
GIRARDIN GOURMET GARDENS 

Minnesotan Joel Girardin grows more than 150 varieties in four row beds, in which he rotates garlic with heirloom tomatoes, squash and melons. Twelve years ago, Girardin became interested in growing garlic after trying strains grown by Seed Savers Exchange members. He found little information on how it was done in Minnesota, so he started experimenting. He says hardnecks porcelain types such as Georgian Crystal and Music, as well as various purple stripes perform best in his area. Before planting garlic in early October, Girardin fertilizes his beds with organic fertilizer made from poultry manure.

For big bulbs, he spaces cloves 6 inches apart. He also plants whole bulbs, which grow into two delicious spring crops greens and scallions.

When the tops are 4 inches to 6 inches tall, they can be cut off and used in salads, like garlic chives, he says. When the tops grow back to 12 inches tall, we dig the whole bulb, break it apart and have garlic scallions, which are lik-e onion scal lions, with a white bulb and green top, and a nice garlic taste.

He and his wife also love baked garlic, made by lopping off the tops from -several ma ture bulbs (so the tips of the cloves are exposed), drizzling them with olive oil and then roastin-g them un til soft. Girardin mixes the roasted garlic warm from the oven -with a lit tle mayonnaise and spreads it on toast.

NORTHEAST:
G & H GARLIC FARM 

James Gunderson has been growing garlic for five years in Littleton, N.H. He says it took three years to develop strains that do well in his area s cold clay and to improve his soil with green manure crops.

You really need a lo-t of or ganic matter in the soil, because garlic needs room to breathe, he says. At G & H Garlic Farm, Gunderson rotates three years of cover crops with each c-rop of gar lic. Garlic s need for great soil a good thing to learn when you have only 1 or 2 pounds in the ground, but even while you- re learn ing, garlic is an enjoyable crop to grow because while it s in the ground, you don t have to attend to it as much as other garden crops.

Gunderson plants his garlic in early October and covers it with 6 to 8 inches of wheat straw. The straw is essential to keep the frost from pushing the bulbs out of the ground, he says. Gunderson recommends hardneck Spanish Roja rocambole and softneck Asian Tempest Asiatic, as well as Georgian Crys-tal porce lain for sausage making to growers in his region.

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