Scroll down towards the bottom to see the year in passing. Things changed a lot this year. A Look at our 2000 Crop. The 2000 crop update as of August 20, 2000. 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? This year we will have plenty of large, healthy sizes of the following garlics: Asian Tempest (early harvesting, very strong Asiatic Artichoke). 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: Nootka Rose (Silverskin) - Rich, good-looking and keeps well - Is this a garlic or a potential mate? Musick (Porcelain) - large, colorful, rich tasting and good storing, thick luxurious wrappers. Spanish Roja (Rocambole) - Ron England's taste favorite (along with a few million other people). Polish Carpathian Red (Rocambole) heh, heh. - What do you think makes those Polish pickles so good? Romanian Red (Porcelain) - large, colorful, full flavor and long storing, thick luxurious wrappers. Wild Buff (Porcelain) - Unique, very strong some years, rich tasting and long storing, hardy Longicuspis garlic. Killarney Red (Rocambole) - Big flavor, grows well - German Red (Rocambole) - Rich, warm flavor with nice afterglow. And more kinds to come - check the Boutique Page regularly for what's currently available. We will add more detailed information about the above garlics and others to our Boutique and Varieties sections during the next few weeks. 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. The 2000 crop update as of May 29, 2000. We expect to begin shipping around August thru November or whenever we run out of garlic, sometime in October, usually. 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. I'm not exactly sure just what varieties we will have this year just yet. We will be selling the produce of other growers this year (see May 1 update below) and are just beginning to hear back from them. The list in the newsletter consists mostly of varieties commonly grown by some other growers that I usually exchange some bulbs with and also some being grown by others who have contacted me. 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. I have already started updating the Boutique Page. We know we will have some Nootka Rose for sure. We will also have Silver Rose (a long storing Silverskin), Spanish Roja, German Red and Killarney, all very rich tasting Rocamboles. I will post others as they come in. What the 2000 crop looks like as of May 1, 2000. Our Spring Newsletter, usually sent in April, is a little later than usual this year due to the uncertainty caused by a season of unlady-like behavior by Mother Nature and her out-of-control daughter, La Nina. They are obviously anti-social and a dysfunctional family that needs counseling. Our garlic had been doing pretty good considering the drought we're in, when a tornado with mostly baseball-size but also a lot of softball-size hail hit three weeks ago and destroyed much of our crop. We are still assessing the damage and seeing which ones can recover, if any. All varieties were heavily damaged and most were destroyed. It's not all bad. The hail beat down the drab dead weeds into fine mulch and broke dead limbs off trees and generally cleaned up the pastures. Now there's green everywhere you look instead of that dreadful old dead color. It's as if someone did a massive cleanup job on the countryside. Even the centuries old Live Oak trees that were stripped of virtually every leaf by the storm and we feared were killed are now lush with new growth. It's a welcome and refreshing breather in a hard drought. Also, I've gotten a lot of practice at replacing glass in windows and am now improving my roofing skills. We knew there would be times like these when we came here and look upon them as the price we must pay for the years of good weather and bumper crops. We may playfully chide Mother Nature, but even with its extremes (In 1803 it was described as "The westernmost point inhabitable by man."), this is a wonderful place to celebrate Life and the Giver of Life. We love sharing our joy with others, even in hard times because without those occassional hard times, the good times wouldn't mean so much. This year we are going to sell garlic grown by other growers, in addition to our own, in order to be able to offer varieties we are unable to grow ourselves due to our southerly location. It also provides a market for growers who may not otherwise be able to find local markets for their produce or who just don't want to bother with the marketing process - they'd rather be working on their farms instead. We want to become a resource to organic growers as well as users of garlic. This is something we've been thinking about anyway and the recent storm makes it an even better idea. So, if you are an organic grower of high quality gourmet garlics and you need a marketing outlet, please E-Mail me. So, we will have lots of new varieties this year - visit our Boutique Page regularly to see what our current offerings are. Most of the varieties mentioned below in the March 1 update will be available plus more as various farmers advise us as to what they have available. We will be updating the Boutique and this page regularly. I would have updated earlier, but have been busy with repairs, replacing roofs, etc. Weather Report: Our fall and winter has been unusually warm, very dry and very, very windy. We are in the third year of a drought that we hope will soon be over. Several of our cattle ponds have dried up now and so has most of the creek, it's down to its few deep holes. Temporary relief came three weeks ago in the form of a thunderstorm that gave us 1 1/4 inches of liquid rain (according to the surviving rain gauge) and also a lot of baseball and softball-size hail that did a LOT of damage. Garlic can come back from ordinary hail that destroys its foliage down to the ground as the soil protects the bulb and it will simply grow new leaves (actually, I think, what's left of the old ones just keep growing), but it cannot come back from being smashed in the ground so our own crop will be smaller in number than usual this year. To sit out a storm like that is a religeous experience and to survive it is humbling and makes one feel grateful. More informatioon will be posted as developments become apparent. What the 2000 crop looks like as of March 1, 2000. Overall, for this time of year, the crop looks pretty good in both size and health. We will have a few new varieties this year - more on that below. We will have plenty of good, large, healthy garlic, including some varieties not mentioned in our website. If you don't see what you want, E-Mail me. Asian Rose and Chinese Purple (as usual) will be the earliest to harvest. We will have a couple of dozen other 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. We have added a few new varieties to our home gardens and also opened up another family garden (in Kansas) to grow varieties we can't grow here in Texas. This will broaden our offerring substantially. We have also decided to offer garlic grown by some other quality growers so that we will have enough stock to fill our customer's orders. We have been running out of garlic too early in the season and hope this will remedy that situation. Our weather this season so far (weatherwise and otherwise, our year starts on September 1) has been dry. Specifically, we have had less than 5" of rain since 9-1-99. Not good. We're in a drought, a severe one at that. This is our third straight year of getting sub-average rainfall and it's beginning to show. The garlic receives drip irrigation to compensate for the lack of rain and holds it in with its blanket of organic mulch. It has been a warm and windy winter with very little cold weather or moisture. This year we can irrigate with water from the creek but next season that may not be an option if we don't get a big rain in the next few months. It is a sad thing to stand on the dry bottoms of stock ponds that are usually 10 feet deep and that you have caught lots of fish out of in the past few years. The wind seems incessant and on days when it comes out of the west, we have what we call West Texas Fog (dust storm to others). Through it all, though, we realize that sooner or later, this drought, too will be relieved by flooding as is Mother Nature's way. Wicked sense of humor, that lady; but she brings so much beauty and splendor that it's hard to complain very much when we're caught up in one of her playful extremes. El Nino started off like this, maybe La Nina is leaving in the same way. We must speak to Mother Nature sometime about learning to control her unruly children. In spite of it all, the garlic looks pretty good, a testimony to its hardiness. It's certainly too soon to count on all of them, but they're progressing quite nicely for this time of year. Some have 12" leaves while most are smaller, but looking good. This year we expect to have plenty of large, healthy sizes of the following garlics: Asian Rose (early harvesting, very strong Asiatic Artichoke). Chinese Purple (early harvesting, very strong Turban Artichoke). Red Toch (early season rich, warm Artichoke) - Chester Aaron's favorite Inchelium Red (mid-season, rich true medium flavored Artichoke). Burgundy (mid-late season, rich, mellow flavored, beautiful Creole Silverskin). Ajo Rojo (very similar to Burgundy, except that it is redder in color and a little stronger in flavor). Metechi - Marbled Purple Stripes that are great bulbs of fire. Siberian (big, beautiful and mellow)- Metechi's mild-mannered look-alike cousin. Locati (Italian Silverskin from Milano) - Strong, hot and very long storing. Rose du Var (Silverskin from France) - Rich, medium flavored and very long storing. and a few others that we will have available in limited quantities. We hope to have a few New Varieties this Year, perhaps including: Nootka Rose (Silverskin) - Rich, good-looking and keeps well - what more would one ask in a garlic or a mate? Musick (Porcelain) - large, colorful, rich tasting and good storing, thick luxurious wrappers. Spanish Roja (Rocambole) - Ron England's taste favorite along with a few million other people. Polish Carpathian Red (Rocambole) heh, heh. - What do you think makes those Polish pickles so good? Sicilian Silver (Silverskin) - Eata Sicilian Silver garlic, iffa you know what'sa good for you. Mexican Red Silver (Silverskin) - Rich, warm flavor with nice afterglow. We will add more detailed information about the above garlics and others to our Boutique and Varieties sections during the next 60 days or so. 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. 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-August, 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. If you would like to receive the e-mail newsletter, please E-Mail me and ask to be put on the newsletter list. After we're sold out and the season is over... We always set aside more planting stock than we think we'll need and may have some left over after planting. Just because we say we're out, doesn't necessarily mean we won't have any later after we finish planting each variety. We MAY have some leftover planting stock available in Late October or November. Check back with us (here and Boutique page) occasionally, as our planting stock is pretty good stuff. Please E-Mail me to tell me what you want to order so that I can verify price and availability. What the 1999 Crop was like and how the year ended. 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. We had a pretty good crop last year, especially for a drought year and it looks like this years crop will be similar. Out-of-the-ordinary weather can add character to garlic, it did last year and I think it will again this year. Our 1999 crop was unique in many ways, while most of the crop was big, beautiful and tasty (extra tasty, I think), some of it behaved strangely. Some of the Metechi and Chesnok Red reacted to the long cool spring that lasted into July as a signal to try to grow again, right in the middle of the process of bolting (maturing) and our sudden return to normal summertime temperatures wound up having each clove in some bulbs sending up a little scape all of its own. Many Locati were forced into early maturity, resulting in small, but very tasty bulbs that store a long time. 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. Buoyed by this uplifting experience, We attended the Festival and things just got better. We met a lot of skilled, knowledgeable people who were as warm and friendly as they were well informed. John Swensen talked about his garlic gathering quest through the former USSR and Phil Simon talked about his research into garlic seed and the possibility of hybridizing garlic. The joy of meeting the delightful Chester Aaron and Darrell Merrell and many, many others (please see the separate coverage of the Festival if you want details). This was more than a few lightweights having fun with garlic, there were a lot of heavy hitters passing a lot of information around. It was so good, the organizers are going to add another day or two to it so more people can attend the seminars and enjoy the bazaar and the feasting. Come to the next festival October 9-14, 2000 and learn a lot about garlic, meet a lot of great people and have as much fun as the law allows.

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