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| Avrum harvesting, July 2005 (yes, he needs a haircut!) |
We grow about 15 varieties of gourmet garlic, which we sell mostly
as braids and other garlic art at the local farmers' markets. Right now, we grow about a quarter-acre but hope to expand
to about half an acre at the new place. We also are developing a small Rocky Mountain Seed Garlic business.
Garlic is where it all started for us. For nearly 10 years before Kristen and Avrum got married, Avrum and his mother
were farming garlic down near Mountainair, NM, in these artistic circular beds like a necklace around Pat's
vegetable garden. Avrum gave Kristen a long braid of garlic after one of their first dates, and she was hooked. We
moved the garlic north to our current farm in autumn 2002, right after we got married.
We grow both hardnecks and softnecks, rocamboles and Creoles, and our favorite Purple Stripes. We are constantly on the
lookout for new wild garlics that naturalize in wetter places in New Mexico. We often drive around in August, searching the
ditchbanks for the wild bubil heads on long, teetering stalks. Several of our best varieties were obtained this way. As one
of Avrum's poems says, "There is so much garlic in a wild head." (He should know. Check out that hair.)
| Ella, goats and garlic |
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