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The Great Garlic Unknown

5/13/2015

10 Comments

 
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If you read my previous post, you'll know that there is a great deal of uncertainty surrounding the economic future of our garlic venture. To recap the general idea: We want to grow certified organic seed garlic marketed specifically to the wet maritime climate west of the Cascade Mountains. We chose this idea because (1) organic seed garlic can command a high price, upwards of $20/lb and (2) there appears to be little competition in the market specific to the geographical area we want to target.

Beyond that idea, I'm not sure what to expect going forward. I've read up on literature on yields, diseases, spacing, and rotation, but most of those data are for areas with very different climates. My goal, therefore, is to be as objective as possible in evaluating our progress as we grow this venture.

Some lessons I've learned thus far: Garlic is a very poor competitor with weeds. This is nothing groundbreaking, but it is something that is sometimes difficult to understand until you've observed it. Even though garlic gets a jumpstart on other plants by emerging before they do, it seems to lose out the growth race to other weeds. In my area, this means horsetail and any perennial grass. Garlic also has a relatively small root system, meaning that it can't compete well for nutrients with weeds, and unlike most grain crops, it doesn't tiller or send up new shoots from rhizomes, meaning that there can be a large quantity of open ground space available for seed germination surrounding each plant. One thing that is also frustrating is that attempting to cultivate weeds in the early spring can be frustrating because the ground is often very wet (not to mention working in the rain). I've been manually hoeing each row this spring, and I've had to do two passes so far. Each approximately 100 ft row takes me about 1.5 hours to weed: two passes with the hoe and then one pass to manually pull intra-row weeds.

Aside from weeding, there are a lot of other labor intensive jobs involved. I need to manually separate all the cloves from the bulb in the fall, sort the cloves by size to make sure only the largest cloves are being planted, and then manually plant each clove. Last year I had to weed twice after planting to keep fall weeds at bay, but I chose not too mulch out of fear of encouraging rot. I think that this year I will mulch with partially composted pig manure/hay and see what happens. At harvesting time, each plant needs to be carefully pulled to ensure the bulbs aren't damaged, kept separate by variety, washed or stripped to remove the dirty exterior, and then hung to dry. Once dry, the plants need to be trimmed of their tops and roots. None of these steps are quick and easy, and they can quickly add up to hours to weeks of work. A bonus is that a lot of this work is spread out over the year, so there is not a ridiculous time crunch like you get in some products (strawberries for instance). The key for me going forward is to come up with the most efficient methods of performing all these jobs, and thinking hard if I want to invest in any equipment that will speed up some of the work. I am thinking about going back to an old strategy of recording all my time related to garlic work beginning with bulb prep in the fall and following through till harvest and processing. It will be interesting to see if $20/lb covers the amount of labor involved (especially one I start adding in labor to organize a mail order business).

A big question I have is related to the spacing of bulbs and the topography of the rows. Last year I made raised bed by making two passes with a middlebuster plow. This created a ridge about every 36 inches. The tractor and the manure spreader can both straddle two of these rows, so I want to pack more plants into the inter-row space. Different studies seem to give different values about the optimum spacing for bulb size and yield. In general, more spacing can give larger bulbs but at a cost of yield. For seed garlic, I want the largest bulbs possible. Intra-row spacing of 6 inches seems to work well, so the question is whether I want to go to 12 inch spacing or 18 inch spacing in the inter-row direction. I've been carefully observing the plants this year to try to get an idea of what would be optimum, and I'm starting to think that it may vary based on variety. I have several varieties that are significantly taller and fuller than others--not too surprisingly this seems to be based on bulb size. For instance, the tallest garlic had 1.5 cloves/ounce while the smallest garlic had 6.5 cloves/ounce. The tallest garlic is seen in the picture below, and there are already a few spots where the leaves of plants from two different rows are almost touching. I can't imagine trying to stuff two rows between these plants.
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I'm also carefully monitoring the color and quality of the leaves. My original plan was to topdress compost over the plants in the spring, but the craziness following the fire coupled with the plants being quite a bit taller in February than I expected meant that composting didn't happen. I checked the pH last year of the garlic and it was well within the acceptable range, and heavily grazed pigs over the garlic area last year. There has been a fair bit of yellowing of the older leave tips, which can be a sign of nitrogen deficiency--but it can also be a sign of other nutrient deficiencies and nutrient deficiencies can be a secondary indicator of poor root growth due to saturated soil or weed competition. Overall, I'm quite happy with the plants, but I want to start investing in some more expensive soil tests and some plant tissue tests in order to get a better idea of what is going on. Ultimately, the proof will be in the bulb size at harvest.

In summary, garlic is exciting for me to grow because it's a fairly complex process involving lots of different steps that give me the opportunity to attempt to maximize efficiency. I also like that it not as delicate and perishable as most fruits and vegetables, which gives me a bit more wiggle room to get a quality product to market. I think it can be a very profitable part of our farm, but only time will tell.
10 Comments
George
5/13/2015 08:19:21 pm

I plant garlic in 36" beds, 6-8" between plants, and 6-8" between rows. 4 rows fits comfortably in each bed, leaving room to weed.

Heavily mulching w/ straw is a good way to keep weed pressure down, I mainly had issues w/ rhizome grasses, but in the spring they came up pretty easy w/ hand work. Also.. Not sure where you are getting your garlic tips from, but never, ever, wash your garlic.

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Nita link
5/14/2015 04:18:10 am

I would remiss if I didn't warn you about mulching with your hog manure hay mix. You will spend a huge amount of time weeding grass from the hay seeds, and the phosphate in the hog manure will give you a flush of weeds you won't believe. Stick with cereal grain straw if possible, it should be weed-free and only will sprout some of the annual grain that didn't make it through the combine. Much easier to weed.

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George
5/14/2015 07:54:30 pm

I must have missed the part that old hay/manure was used as the mulch... that was a mistake for sure. Plus hay holds moisture more than straw as it mats down and you run the risk of stem rot at the base, and bulbs that are not going to store as long.

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Jeff
5/15/2015 12:58:16 am

Thanks for the comments. A few questions/points:

1. I've been washing my garlic for the last three years without problems. I rinse it immediately after harvesting and then hang it to dry. The bulbs are moist when harvested so I have a hard time imagining why this would be a problem. I've heard the "don't wash garlic" before but I've wondered if it's more of old wive's tale.

2. I'm not convinced that using a fairly composted hay/manure product is such a bad thing. I totally understand that there will be some seed germination, but I'm not convinced it will be that horrific. As far as phosphate or other nutrients, the mulch will have gone through a full winter of leaching in our wet climate, so I'm not too concerned about that. The rotting is always a concern for me, but it's a bit of an unknown risk.

I'm willing to take some risks in order to find out how the mulching will perform. There is a big economic incentive to use my self-produced organic mulch/fertilizer than being forced to find and buy organic straw somewhere. It may be the case that it is worth the extra cost, but I'm stubborn and want to to test it first. I think next year I will do an experiment where I mulch half the garlic and leave half unmulched as I did this year.

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George
5/15/2015 10:56:07 am

If you have a very heavy, sticky, clay soil you may want to gently wash your garlic.. that's your choice. I farmed in clay soil when I was in Pennsylvania, and never had to wash my garlic. Let it cure in a warm place for a day, and the dirt dries up and brushes right off. It's your harvest, do what you want ;)

As to the hay/manure... "fairly" composted... i'm not sure what that is. Compost needs to heat up quite hot, 130-175F to destroy weed seeds, and even then a seed w/ a hard seed coat will not die.

Straw, and plastic mulch are your best bet to minimize weed pressure in your garlic. I would not even bother testing an unmulched area next year, it'll be a huge waste of time and labor.

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Jeff
5/18/2015 06:40:37 am

We have a silty clay soil here, and in my experience, the labor involved in brushing the garlic is about 5 times more than the labor involved in washing. I've seen videos of folks peeling off the outer layer in lieu of brushing or washing which I want to try this year as well.

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George
5/18/2015 08:25:34 pm

I brush off when I'm bundling to hang... doesn't take any extra time imo, certainly not worth making it extra step. Remember, the less you handle garlic, the less chance of bruising, sloughing off more of the paper skins etc.

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bruce king link
5/19/2015 10:14:02 am

Jeff, if you're interested in trying different methods for your garlic, why not try out any method you think might work on a few feet of a row? Try mulching 10 feet, hilling 10 feet, etc. That allows you to have better data, since weather and soil conditions will be identical. That way you could have good data on several different techniques by the end of this season.

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Jeff
5/20/2015 05:26:45 am

I will be doing some testing, but I also know (way too much) about controlled experiments so I don't want to introduce too many variables. It will probably be a multi-year process to refine my garlic growing methodology.

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George
5/20/2015 09:20:43 am

*shrug* you seem to just wanna do it your way, regardless of what others say. Best of luck.

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