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The Current State of the 2001 Crop.
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Scroll down towards the bottom to see the year in passing. Things changed a lot this year. A Report of the Crop as of December 31, 2001 - We're Sold Out of All Fresh Garlics until Summer 2002! What an interesting year this has been! One is enough of years like 2001. It was a year of ecstastic highs and tragic lows with some growers experiencing bumper crops while others while others watched theirs' wither or drown. It was an incredible spring followed by 9-11, it was a year when much beautiful garlic turned bad in storage. It was a year we got more orders than ever before but much of the garlic wilted and many orders had to be cancelled. All in all; however, it was a spectacular year that I won't be forgetting any time soon. So far, the 21st century is rather turbulent, but interesting in a fatal attraction sort of way. We have grown and continued to develop in spite of it all and will continue to be a source of excellent garlics from excellent growers. We have more growers than ever before so 2002 looks to be a year of plentiful supplies of premium quality exotic varietal garlics. We will also be adding much to the website in both information about garlic and pickled garlic and other garlic snacks and kitchen tools as well as books, gardening aids and other things. We will have a lot more help in 2002 so we will be able to ship orders faster. We will be making lots of changes to the website often and will add peroidical 2002 crop reports to keep you advised about the outlook for garlic supplies this year. So please drop by from time to time to see what the current state of the 2002 crop is and be sure to get your order in early since early orders get the best selection. We will probably begin shipping sometime this summer around August or September. A Report of the Crop as of December 6, 2001 - We're Sold Out Except For Small Assortment Sampler Packs!  Click Here to Go To the Boutique
- Buy Small Assorted Sampler Packs of garlic & other things.
A Report of the Crop as of October 6, 2001 - A Lotta garlics that are Lookin' Great! Finally, we have over 20 different kinds of garlic in stock ready to ship. It has been a very hard year for many garlic growers and several of our regular growers reported major weather-related crop losses. Boy, can we empathize with them! Others say their garlic took a month longer than normal to dry down enough to ship safely because of higher than usual humidity, so we got a much later than usual start on filling and sending orders. We also found a few more growers whose garlic meets our standards and a few whose garlic does not. There's not as many mild ones this year, but a better selection of medium and strong varieties - see below. About the same time as the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, Grandma's cancer took a turn for the worse and Papa, whose prostate cancer was well under control with our alternative therapy, (PSA dropped from 432 to 12 and continued to drop) came down with pneumonia and died on Sept. 22nd and grandma died shortly after. We have lost our Matriarch and our Rock. We cared for Grandma (pronounced Ma'am-ma) at home during her last days, but Papa died in the hospital. We achieved our goal with him in that we arrested the development of his PC w/bone mets and probably reversed it long enough for him to have a good quality of life and die from something else - we just hoped he would be good for another few years. We grieved and buried them and grieved some more and now we are back to focusing on the world of the living for that is what life is really all about. We can focus on death for all eternity, but we can only focus on life right now.
In no particular order we have the following kinds of garlic in stock and ready to send (as soon as we get caught up filling older orders):
If any of these are not listed in the Boutique page or the Varieties page, it's because I haven't had time to list them there yet so call me toll-free at (866) 348-3049 or E-Mail me If you want to order them. We have received in 12 kinds of garlic now and have about that many more on the way in and also have an EXCELLENT new variety - warm winter growers will love this one - it's called Gregory's China Rose. China Rose is an early season Asiatic or Turban (we are not certain yet) Artichoke that has a very rich, full earthy taste (9 on a scale of 10 - and there probably ain't no 10) but is only moderately hot; about 4 on a scale of 10. We think it's going to become very popular not only for its flavor, but because it grows well in California, the South and other warm winter areas. We have also gotten some very excellent bulbs of Georgian Fire, Siberian, Bogatyr, Music, Spanish Roja, Killarney Red, Romanian Red, German White, Polish Hardneck, Chesnok Red, Zemo and a few other varieties that we have enough of only for use in Assortments. As hinted at above, we'll have about twice as many more different kinds coming in during the next week or two, so if you don't see what you want wait a few days and try us again or e-mail me and ask - you might be surprised what I can find. A Report of the State of the Crop as of August 4, 2001 - Lookin' Good!The new crop of garlics for the 2001 season are now mostly harvested and in the drying down process known as curing, which can take from 3 to 7 weeks, depending on size. The earliest harvesting ones are already being trimmed and the others will follow in the next few weeks. We will begin shipping in early to mid September. All the growers I have talked to tell me this is a good year for them for most varieties, so there will be lots of great garlic available. BIG NEWS! Finally, we are set up to accept credit cards (Visa, Mastercard and American Express and soon Discover). This has been a long time coming and so has the shopping cart I am installing to simplify buying and to automate the process. Our acceptance of credit cards signals a shift away from a seasonal business to a year-round activity where we sell things related to garlic as well as the fresh bulbs, which we will try to stock on a year-round basis - (lotsa luck, we usually sell out of garlic and go for months without any to sell - of course, you know we're piggin' out on my private stash). It has taken a lot of time and effort to bring it all together, so I hope it works right. If not, please let me know and I'll try to get it up and running. Ordering should be easier than ever now with the on-line shopping cart. It will not only accept credit cards on line, but also fill out an order form for you to print and send if you prefer to pay by check and also would prepare a checklist if you prefer to give your credit card information over our toll-free phone line. If you have any questions, please feel free to e-mail or call me. I've already had about a dozen different varieties confirmed for certain that we'll have them (They're listed on the Boutique page). We expect to have several more new committments each week and will have 30 or 40 varieties available by mid-September. We will add them to the Boutique page and also add information about them in the Varieties Page as they come in. We will also add them to the shopping cart program to make it easier to order them. I will try to keep the website updated once or twice a week so that new varieties are posted immediately.
A look back at 2000 and a first look at this years crop as of March 22 2001. Wow! What a wild and crazy year 2000 was for us, especially when you remember that we lost our crop in April to a tornado/freak hail storm. Having no garlic of our own to offer, we asked other growers if they would sell some of their garlic to us so we would have something to sell. What a response. We received big, beautiful bulbs from organic growers all across the country. It sure felt great to be able to ship those beautiful assortments of garlics. It shows what good things can happen for everyone when organic people work together. It works for everyone - consumers get what they are looking for, growers sell their crops, everybody wins. We're going to do it again this year. While 2000 brought us a lot more unanticipated free publicity in the way of being recommended in Forbes Magazine and stories that mentioned us in lots of newspapers across the country, it also brought more than its share of adversity. 2000 was undoubtedly the hottest and driest year of my life - it hit 116 degrees several times last year and was often between 108 and 114 (measured in the shade of the north side of the house). All creeks and ponds (we call them cattle tanks) went dry and prairie and pasture alike were barren and the outlook was bleak. Almost all of the ranchers west of us had to sell off their herds because there was nothing for them to eat or drink, and we were next - we were in the midst of the worst drought in our local history. Funny, the drought ended when we went to the Garlic is Life Symposium and Festival in Tulsa, OK in Oct. It started raining on us there and rained on us all the way back from Tulsa and has rained often enough since then that we have been unable plow or plant because it has been too wet since then. Mother Nature always seems to have special treats in store for this part of Texas. No doubt this is the price we must pay for the beautiful sunrises and spectacular sunsets and the beautiful oak-treed rolling hills to the east of us and the low prairie to the west. If it's the price we have to pay for the deer and turkey and the bobcat and buzzard, it's well worth it. We love the isolation of living in a remote creek bottom area with abundant wildlife (game, the hunters call it) and if severe weather is the rent Mama Earth charges us for living in her home, it's more than reasonable. We usually enjoy growing garlic in the fertile creekside soil, but if we have to miss a crop or two occasionally, it's still cheap rent. I work as a ranch hand for my father-in-law and he has recently come up lame, so I'm now doing more of the things he used to do so it takes a little more of my time. I have been studying everything on the net about prostate cancer to see if there is a way to help him. We seem to have found some complementary therapies that have made him feel better and gain back some of the weight he lost. He is doing better and we hope it lasts. Learning about organic chemistry, cell biology and the endocrine system has opened up a whole new appreciation for the complexity of apparently simple things. The 2001 crop update as of March 22, 2001.
We will begin shipping in early-mid September this year - Place your orders now. We're still looking for a few more good growers this year. Are you Organic? Do you measure up?We will probably have even more varieties to choose from this year than last year but we won't know for a while exactly which varieties we will have available. We will be selling the produce of other growers again this year. What the actual product line is we won't know for certain until garlic starts arriving from growers. We may get 20 or 30 lbs from one grower and 50 or 100 lbs from another. So I expect a lot of changes in what is available at any time and will keep the Boutique Page of the website continuously updated with what is currently available. We will have a couple of dozen kinds of garlic available for assortments. E-Mail me if you're not sure and ask about what varieties are best for your area and even though we cannot guarantee the fitness or worthiness of our garlic for any particular purpose, we can certainly give you some idea as to which varieties would be more or less likely to do well in your area.
This year we expect to have plenty of large, healthy sizes of the following garlics (based on what we can usually get): Red Toch (early season rich, warm Artichoke) - Chester Aaron's favorite. Inchelium Red (mid-season, rich true medium flavored Artichoke). Georgian Crystal - Porcelain that looks beautiful, tastes beautiful, doesn't overpower. Chesnok Red - Purple Stripe that is surprisingly mellow for such a full taste. Silverwhite (Silverskin) - Strong, warm/hot and very long storing. Mild French (Silverskin from France) - Rich, medium flavored and very long storing. and a few others that we will have available in limited quantities. We will also have a few New Varieties this Year, including: We will add more detailed information about the above garlics and others to our Boutique and Varieties sections during the next few months. We expect to have some additional varieties as well, check back often. Please E-Mail me if you don't see your favorite garlic listed. We'll have more different kinds of garlic this year than ever before thanks to the combined efforts of a lot of growers nationwide. Shortly after we put the word out that we were looking for a few good growers, some stepped forward and made their produce available to us. As we continue to hear from more growers, we expect to have more different kinds than before and can offer you an even wider range of flavors and types. Garlic is shipped out in the order payment is received and with what we think is the best garlic then available. Due to unanticipated orders, we may have to substitute, but we'll find some way to get you some good garlic, one way or another. Always check the Boutique Page for what is currently available. Many of our customers have taken to sending their orders to us in the spring in order to get in line early and have the best selection. We think that is a good idea.
Most of these orders are paid in May for shipment in mid-September, which is earliest that some late maturing varieties can be sent, including some assortments.
We send out a newsletter in April describing what the crop looks like at that time announcing what varieties we think will be the best. Please E-Mail me to tell me what you want to order so that I can verify price and availability. Wow! What a busy year last year was. First, we were favorably mentioned in a Food and Wine magazine article and then the New York Times mentioned us as did the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, the Contra Costa Times and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and several other publications, too. I feel very flattered. We were overwhelmed with orders (Thank you very much!) and too busy to post any changes to the website. Still am, but I'm doing it anyway. The extraordinary amount of unanticipated free publicity caused us to sell out earlier than usual and by the time the Garlic is Life Festival began in Tulsa in Mid-October, we were sold out. We even had to return some people's money because we had no more garlic to sell. |
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Our site is always under construction. - This page last updated February 5, 2002.
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