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Occasional Newsletter and
Current State of the 2005 Crop.
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Scroll down towards the bottom to see this year in passing. Things changed a lot this year. This Newsletter will grow as things change.  Click Here to Read the 2004 Newsletter.
Click Here to Read the 2003 Newsletter. Click Here to Read the 2002 Newsletter.
Click Here to Read the 2001 Newsletter. Click Here to Read the 2000 Newsletter.
Click Here to Read the 1999 Newsletter. Updated November 28, 2005 - Welcome to the viewers of Texas Country Reporter Television Show which ran an episode this week featuring my wife's favorite Garlicmeister, me. I felt very flattered that they would want to come out to our place and introduce me and my garlic to people all over Texas through their popular program. They showed me playing my Indian flute and harvesting garlic and hanging it in the barn. They also showed me taste testing a Creole garlic and discussing it's flavor. Speaking of flute, winter solstice is coming in three weeks and I need to practice in order to be able to play well at Paint Rock for the "I saw the light" ceremony as the spear of light strikes the center of a pictograph painted hundreds of years ago, just like it does every swinter solstice. Click Here to Read more about the special pictographs at Paint Rock, Texas. Updated November 25, 2005 - We're completely caught up and are shipping out orders within 24 hours of being received. We still have some garlic left and it's of pretty good quality. Everything is back up to normal again after our ISP's server crashed and our website was down for a few days. Fall is always our busiest time of year and we have been recommended by one national magazine or another the last five years and every fall when our website traffic was at it's heaviest, their server has gone down for one to three days and it wasn't due to our miniscule bandwidth and I just couldn't tolerate it anymore. We finally had to move the website to a new host and can certainly expect more reliablility now.
We still have ample amounts of garlic for assortments, but only for assortments, as we can no longer ship pounds of garlic all of the same variety since increased demand and record sales have depleted most of our inventory .
If you want to buy garlic, had better hurry as we are rapidly selling out.
Wow! Being recommended in the Oct.-Nov. issue of Mother Earth News has really kept us busy - on top of our usual fall madness caused by orders coming in all year long for shipment in September, resulting in a frantic turmoil as we ship out hundreds of saved up orders as fast as we can.
It is our policy to send all earlier orders before later arriving ones.
Right now it takes us a week or more to ship out an incoming order, but we hope to be completely caught up by the end of next week and can again ship incoming orders within 24 hours - that's always our goal. Updated September 15, 2005 - We're shipping garlic out now as fast as we can and expect to get caught up shipping all the early orders in the next few days - see list of cultivars below and we have a few others as well. We're starting a few days earlier than usual this year. Except to our Gulf Coast friends who have been affected by Katrina. We will hold orders from the area until we know what our friends there want to do. To those of our customers living in the storm damage disaster area who have lost their garlic this year, we will make available for you some Creole and perhaps other garlics at little or no cost to help you get re-started. Updated July 23, 2005 - Great News! We can lower Creole prices after all - from $24/lb to $20/lb. Price is always influenced by availability. Our surviving garlic crop has sized up well during the curing process, including many of those we thought weren't going to be big enough (some still aren't) and we have the best crop we have had in years. We may still not have as much of it as we would prefer, but the size and quality of most of what we have is from very good to excellent. Many will only be available in assortments, but at least they're available. Creoles aren't as big as other garlics but cost as much to grow so their price will probably always be a little higher. Updated July 10, 2005 -A computer glitch has delayed our printing of our annual fall snail mail catalog but it will be on the way soon. Well, the 2005 harvest is complete, the garlic is in the barn curing and will soon be trimmed and graded. Faithful readers from years past will be wondering what manner of catastrophe befell us this year at the hands of our landlady, Ma Nature. Only a small one and a price we gladly pay - the western third of our garden was flooded from December through April so we lost a little of our crop. Still, our rebuilding program is making great strides as we now have a good supply of excellent planting stock for about 40 cultivars of garlic for our next years crop. Thanks to the folks at Channel 8 in Dallas who dropped by to film a segment for their local news program. They filmed me pulling garlic from the ground and the barn full of garlic hanging from the rafters in hundreds of bunches . It looked kinda like a tobacco drying barn - pretty scenic, really. In general it was a very good harvest, but with a bite taken out of the western part. The rest of the garden did quite well and grew a lot of extra-large garlic, mostly to be used as our planting stock this fall - we're looking for a nice large harvest next year and we'll be starting out with some pretty good planting stock. We have some excellent Burgundy which we can sell by the pound (Limit of two pounds per customer), but the other Creoles are in such short supply they will be sold only in assortments so as to give as many people as possible a chance to try them. Creoles continue to be hard to come by. We have hopes of being able to drop the prices on Creoles but it may not be - it all depends on how well they size up during the curing process. You can find out more about Creoles on our Varieties and Overview pages.We also have some excellent Siberian, a mild Marbled Purple Stripe garlic - great for warm winter gardens. Our standard prices for 2005 will remain at $16./pound for most bulk garlics, with special assortments costing from $18. to $20. In most cases, add $2 per pound for premium sizes. Shipping will be $8 for the first pound plus $2 extra for each additional pound. These are the Kinds of Garlic We Typically Have in Stock (Not guaranteed!). We Will Probably Have These and More in 2005!
Ajo Rojo - A creole with a lot of flavor and a little zing. We expect to have several more new commitments and will have 20 or 30 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 often so that new varieties are posted immediately. Updated June 5, 2005 -We have had more rain and yet another cool front come through to relieve us from the four days of 101 to 103 F temps we got last week. The heat seared some of the leaves of some of the plants, limiting their ability to grow somewhat, but all in all, we still have a very good crop. More later - I'm in the middle of harvesting right now. Updated May 23, 2005 - Our crop is still growing and hasn't been wiped out by any kind of disaster yet and it looks like we may make a nice crop this year. We have had a cool winter and spring with a gradual warmup. However, it has now become hot with temps in the mid-to-upper 90s this week, so that should force the garlic to mature, but if it gets to 100, that could damage the garlic's leaves and force early bolting. Our early harvesting varieties, normally already harvested by now, are slow to come to maturity; however, the mid and late season varieties are pretty much on schedule. We will begin harvesting in a few days, when the temp drops a few degrees. Updated April 20, 2005 - If the crop continues to do well, we should have fair amounts of Creole garlics that do so well in the South, including Ajo Rojo, Burgundy, Creole Red, Cuban Purple and Spanish Benitee. We will have lesser amounts of Spanish Morado, Labera Purple and Pescadero Red - mostly available in assortments only. However, if we lose a large part of our crop Creoles will continue to be rare and expensive. We also expect to have a lot of Siberian and a little Metechi, both are Marbled Purple Stripes that excel in warm winter climates.
Good news for lovers of French cuisine, we hope to have some Germinador and Rose du Lautrec (all the rage in the south of France) in limited quantities next year and maybe some Rose du Var and Thermadrone as well, hopefully.
The garden is drying out well from the long wet spell and our garlic crop continues to look great. The foliage is mostly large and lush, although there are a few burned leaf tips due to bright sun, El Nino winds and wet soil.
Leaves are about two feet long and the necks are thickening and the bulbs are beginning to form in the earlier harvesting ones.
You can tell the different varieties apart just by looking at their foliage. Among the softnecks, the yellowish green splayed-out leaves of artichokes are easily distinguished from the darker, more vertical silverskins that reach straight for the sky.
The Creoles are a medium green with more vertical leaves while the porcelain types are lush, ground-hugging and deep blue-green.
The marbled purple stripe varieties are the largest and most robust looking ones of the bunch.
My interpretations of two of the Paint Rock pictographs were submitted as a paper to the Southwest Federation of Archeological Societies, a peer review group, and were accepted with enthusiasm. The identification of these two pictographs as astronomical in nature,
in addition to several other astronomically-related pictographs confirms Paint Rock is the most extensive archeoastronomy site in the country.
Both new interpretations indicate things that have not yet been found at other pictograph/petroglyph sites and make Paint Rock unique. Updated March 16, 2005 - As of today, our garlic crop looks wonderful. It has had plenty of rain and some parts of the West end are standing in water, but it has not affected very much of the crop. Even though we couldn't plant as early as we would have liked (Nov.-Dec., instead of Oct.-Nov), almost everything is big and lush this looks to be one of the best crops ever for us. El Nino usually gives us a good garlic crop while La Nina doesn't usually do as well - this is an El Nino growing season. Our crop this year is almost all Creole varieties, such as Burgundy, Ajo Rojo, Creole Red, Spanish Benitee, Spanish Morado and Cuban Purple. We have 38 kinds this year, mostly in development for future years. We have several kinds each of Marbled Purple Stripes, Artichokes, Asiatics, Porcelains and some very nice rare French garlics. Added February 19, 2005 - I would like to thank the American Botanical Council for their kind words about us in the current issue (Number 65) of their journal, HerbalGram. Recognition of any kind by such esteemed herbalists feels good, even if my contributions were such a small part of their greater gardens. They do an indispensible job that is becoming increasingly important in a world where many natural treatments and philosophies are being lost. They deserve all the support they can get. Our crop is up nicely and we have had more than enough rain to keep it happy. We're growing in the northern half of Ma Daisy's old garden for the first time in seven years and it looks good. This year we are growing mostly the very rare Creole varieties while re-establishing our Artichoke, Silverskin and Marbled Purple Stripes varieties as well. We expect to have some nice Burgundy as well as Ajo Rojo and a little Creole Red and maybe a couple of others. It's way too early to make any predictions, but the crop looks very good at this point in time. We are just now beginning our annual update to the website and you can already see some results from it. We will have lots of things to add this year and will be adding some new pictures soon as well as more technical information about garlic. We will also be adding a section all about Paint Rock, the Indian pictograph site a little to the west from our place. It is a very special place that people should know about. The 2003 and 2004 newsletters had some discussion about it. Added December 21, 2004 - Sorry, friends, we're all sold out of fresh garlic for the season. Our next shipments will will be in Summer/Fall of 2005. Place your orders early in the year for September shipping to get the best chance of getting exactly the rare garlics you want; after all, they are rare and people do not always get ones they want because they're so hard to find. Added November 5, 2004 - We have plenty of large excellent German Extra Hardy and Music - both longer storing garlics. We also have some nice Chesnok Red and Persian Star, the two best of all roasting garlics. Click on names to buy. We also still have a nice selection of garlics for Assortments. Order now while there's still time to plant and a good selection. Added September 16, 2004 - The article in last year's Sept/Oct edition of Organic Gardening magazine recommending Creoles (and us) for warm winter regions of the country has caused an immediate increase in demand for these rare treasures. Creoles are the hardest to find of all garlics these days, and the increase in demand comes at a time when there simply aren't many available. The good news is that we expect to have a much greater supply of them next year and the year after. Added June 5, 2004 -What a magnificent spring we're having out here on the ranch. It looks like a sea of pinks, reds, yellows, golds, whites and blues covering the prairie like a wall-to-wall carpet of colored snow. The perfumed air is heavy with the sounds of birds and insects as the Landlady dons her finest apparel to show us that not only is she strong and powerful, but that she is also a thing of beauty and a patron of the natural arts. She has turned our little piece of central Texas into candy for the eyes, ears, nose and soul. When the Landlady feels good, everyone feels good. We don't usually encourage visitors because I enjoy them so much I wind up getting nothing else done and fall even further behind. However, we are considering welcoming volunteers at planting time in the fall and at harvesting time in the spring if they want to help out with the crop. For those who don't like to camp out, there are available a couple of nice fully equipped vacation condo-type homes with wood burning fireplaces and a modern bunkhouse-style luxury hostel with two large dormitory-type bunk bedrooms in nearby communities. E-mail me if you would like to attend. Added May 19, 2004 -
Creoles are probably the rarest of all garlics these days as very few people grow them and their
crops are all small. They are in very great demand but in very limited
supply, due largely to the article mentioning us in Organic Gardening Mag last fall.
Our phone number is 1 - ( 325 ) 348-3049.
It's very important to order early as the earliest orders get the best choice of the new crop garlic - and many cultivars sell out early.
We would like to welcome the readers of Herb Companion magazine to our website. My thanks to Susan Belsinger for mentioning us in their May 2004 issue - it always feels good when a such a well respected publication recommends you.
Recognition is one of the main things that makes the long hours of toil worth the effort.
Herb Companion has long been a valuable source of herbal information to us and it makes me feel honored and humbled to be favorably mentioned.
We feel very fortunate to have been recommended by several other publications in the last few years, including, The NY Times, Forbes Magazine, Food and Wine magazine, Organic Gardening, Texas Gardening, The Dallas Morning News and San Francisco Chronicle,
among many newspapers across the country. We must be doing something right.
I played my Choctaw cedar flute again this year at the Paint Rock Pictograph site (Click here to read of our excellent experiences and discoveries at Paint Rock) during the winter solstice and again during the vernal equinox and discovered the meanings of some of the pictographs.
Some of them were ritualistic, such as the paintings that honored the Green Corn Moon and the Ripe Corn Moon, two of the biggest celebrations of the year among corn growing indians.
Some of them were of astronomical significance, such as those depicting the supernovae of 1054 and 1572 and one that was a beautiful map of the winter/spring sky. Another was already known to be a reliable marker for the winter solstice.
It's a real "Aha" moment when you finally figure out a pictograph. What was a mystery for centuries is suddenly clear.
Added November 17, 2003 - It has been a busy fall season, especially since Organic Gardening magazine ran an article about garlic mentioning us and recommending us as a mail order source of garlic. It always feels good when some national publication recognizes your work and mentions you favorably in an article. There was another Garlic is Life! Symposium in Tulsa and it was super. The scientific focus this year was on identifying the basic groups of garlic and the origin places of those particular groups of garlic.
The latest findings indicate seven groups or clusters of garlic types, with the Creoles being yet undefined.
An earlier study had shown 17 isozyme groups falling into five major categories. The symposium has been a gold mine to me in terms of being able to meet knowledgeable, multi-degreed people from whom I have learned much about all aspects of garlic. It is from these well-informed experts from afar that I get the information for the website. The material in my website comes from these experts' lectures and also from the conversations we have at lunch or dinner afterward. The body of knowledge about garlic is growing exponentially, just like the interest in it and there's a lot of misinformation circulating about it, too. I try to clear up some of the confusion by talking with experts and incorporating their comments into the website - that keeps it current. Added September 12, 2003 - We owe thanks again this year to our group of Great Garlic Growers for allowing us to purchase the cream of their crops at a premium price so that we will be selling only the best that we can find. Our growers take good care of us. For those who haven't been following along with us, Our growers are remotely located growers who don't have much of a local market, but who can grow some really great garlic. By patronizing these small scale growers we are promoting e-commerce in America. With the help of our growers, we can deliver these gourmet varieties to the people who come to our website looking for them. Everybody wins.
NEW! - Added May 1, 2003 - Check out our new line of pickled/marinated garlic. -
March 25, 2003 This year, I played my Choctaw cedar flute at the Winter Solstice and Vernal Equinox celebrations at the pictographs site at Paint Rock, Texas.
Paint Rock is a place which many native peoples over the centuries have treated as a holy place and painted many pictures and symbols on the cliff walls above the banks of the Concho River.
Observations have confirmed some of these rock paintings to accurately predict the solstices and equinoxes and some that appear to be astronomical/astrological sky charts as well.
Paint Rock is a special place where one can commune with nature and feel an uncommonly strong connectedness with Mother Earth and her family (sometimes we forget that we are a part of that family - not something separate from it).
It feels as if some part of the spirits of those who were here before are still here. It is an invitation to open the eyes and ears of your soul to hear the stories of those whose innumerable campfires dot the night sky and whose names can never be said again.
One comes away with a feeling of spiritual fulfillment and personal contentment.
There are some places that just seem to have some kind of spiritual electromagnetic attraction - this place is one.
Always check the Boutique Page for what is currently available. If you wish, you can E-Mail me or call me at (1-325-348-3049) to tell me what you want to order so that I can verify price and availability. We are now set up to accept credit cards (Visa, Mastercard and American Express and Discover) and we have installed a shopping cart to simplify buying and to automate the process. Even though our process appears to be automatic, it isn't. I still review each and every sale before the credit card is charged and sometimes even write a personal comment on the receipt that gets sent with the package. We are not going to sacrifice personal service to automation. Ordering is 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 the phone. If you have any questions, please feel free to e-mail or call me.
Click Here to Go To the Boutique
- Buy Small Assorted Sampler Packs of garlic & other things.
Click Here to Go To the Varieties Page
- Buy specific varieties of garlic by the pound.
A look back at the Topsy-Turvy 2001 crop year. What an interesting year this has been! One is enough of years like 2001. It was a year of ecstastic highs (They wrote a big article about us in Texas Gardener Magazine.) and tragic lows with some growers experiencing bumper crops while others while others watched their garlic wither or drown. It was an incredible spring followed by 9-11, it was a year when some beautiful garlic turned bad in storage. Due to the article in Forbes, we got more orders than ever before but much of the garlic from one particular grower wilted prematurely 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. 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. 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 - 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. Mother Nature always seems to have special treats in store for this part of Texas. Wow! What a busy year 1999 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. |
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Our site is always under construction. - This page last updated Novemberber 28, 2005.
If you would like to communicate with us, please send email to:
Bob
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times since June 6, 1999. - Thanks.
