We're part of 'Garlic Girls', a collective of small growers of organic garlic. 'Collective' sounds a tad more impressive than the reality - it was originally made up of myself and Collette, then my father expressed an interest in getting involved (after we'd come up with the name!). I've a suspicion I'm the weak link in this particular chain having seen their gorgeously abundent patches.
All the rain we've been having has meant there's a danger of them rotting in the ground so many have had to be taken out over the weekend. I'm already looking forward to sampling the elephant garlic (roasted whole as they are not a strong tasting variety - similar to leeks in flavour apparently), and figuring out how to make a garlic bread with our Tassie ingredients.
I've been doing a bit of www research about garlic as I was keen to see what other varieties we may be able to plant next season - didn't find out much about that, but discovered the following facts:
- Stinky garlic breath is caused when garlic's strong smelling sulfur compounds are metabolized forming allyl methyl sulfide.
- Garlic can thin the blood similar to the effect of aspirin.
- Garlic is good for pest control in the garden, particularly aphids. Soak it with some hot chillies in water for two weeks, then strain it, and apply it as a spray. Can be planted as a companion plant with roses, cabbages, eggplants, tomatoes and fruit trees.
(sources: wikipedia, and www.garlic.com.au)
We'll be selling our surplus at the Rare Food stall at Salamanca (near the Fresh Fruit Market and Knopwoods).
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