Seed Savers garlic response

We received a nice, thorough response from Seed Savers Exchange to our concerns about the garlic stock we purchased this year (summarized in this post). See text below, and our response below that:

Dear Eric:

Thank you for your comments and concerns.

We have always experienced some conversion of the softnecks to hardnecks, and this year, we have experienced an abnormal number of heads converting across most softneck varieties.

The two softneck varieties you ordered, Inchelium Red and Lorz Italian, are classified under the variety of ‘Artichoke.’ While Artichokes do not normally produce a seed head, they often produce large bulbils that protrude from the lower third of the stem. When stressed, Artichokes can produce hard necks and seed heads.

The ‘hardneck’ bulbs you received in these softneck varieties are a result of bulbil clusters being produced on the stems of these stressed plants. Many growers experience that cloves planted from these bulbs will usually revert to soft necks the following season. In the past, we have sorted out and trialed these ‘hardneck’ types, and received advice from our Garlic Advisor, John Swenson, that we should not be overly concerned with doing this - these varieties will often convert, and they just do that. We do, however, only save softneck bulbs with soft stems as planting stock for our continued

commercial production.

Another variation in explanation we can give you is taken from Ron L. Engeland’s book, *Growing Great Garlic *(pg8-9):

“In some climates (such as Germany), they *(Artichokes)* still often produce topsets, but in most climates they only produce a few large bulbils out the side of the false stem a few inches above the bulb. These bulbils may even appear as small, odd-shaped cloves inside the bulb wrappers at the very top of the bulb… many growers would claim that softneck garlics are less stable than hardnecks and more likely to display a wide range of environmental responses.”

Since softneck varieties typically perform better in warmer climates, we can speculate that our northern conditions are not as ideal for these varieties and as a result, experience more environmental responses, such as bulbil production and hardneck conversion. These bulbs are still true to the variety and we will continue to grow and offer these varieties, to honor the

Seed Savers mission and the tradition of preserving and sharing heritage varieties and promoting biodiversity. However, since we strive to offer quality products, we are considering sorting out the ‘hard-necked’ softnecks from our sales stock next year to sell as eating garlic at our Visitor’s

Center and to donate to the local food pantry.

We will gladly issue you a refund for the Lorz and Inchelium garlic varieties that you are not satisfied with. The Persian Star is a hardneck, and a very good performer for us, but please let us know if you are not satisfied with this variety. We do still have a small amount of quality

seed stock remaining that we would be glad to send you as a replacement if what you received is unsatisfactory. We just finished planting our stock seed garlic last week, and weather conditions in Missouri should still be fine for planting garlic.

Please let Lou or I know how you would like to proceed. Your satisfaction is important to us. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Kelly

OUR RESPONSE:

Kelly,

Thank you for the prompt, thorough, and informative reply. I would

strongly suggest that you include a version of that information in your

catalogue, and even potentially with the shipped garlic. We would not have

been as disturbed if we had had that information beforehand. We do have

"Growing Great Garlic" and consult it often, but had not made the

connection between these varieties and "artichoke" varieties, so we

appreciate you pointing that out.

I would also agree that a good policy would be to treat customers as you

treat your own stock, and only sell the true softnecks. Or maybe offer the

option to get a mixed bag for a different price, since some growers won't

care. Those who do care should be able to get the more pure selection, but

you don't need to sacrifice all sales for those of us who are picky.

As regards a refund, we appreciate the offer, but are not sure we should

take it at this time. We did, after all, plant the garlic and expect to

harvest and sell it next year. If we get a good crop, there's no reason to

take your money. However, if we do harvest it and find that many are not

true-to-type or otherwise unsellable, we would at that point like at least

a partial refund. Would it be possible to record this for next year if

that happens?

We also appreciate the offer of extra stock, but we have planted all the

beds planned for garlic at this point, and would not have a place within

our rotation for any further garlic.

Thanks again for the good response,

Eric Reuter

Chert Hollow Farm

Early winter food supply

It's mid-November, and we still haven't needed to start tapping our frozen/canned winter supplies except for a few quarts of strawberries. In the ground, we have salad greens, cooking greens, leeks, cabbage, bok choi, turnips, carrots, radishes, herbs, and more. In indoors/cold storage we have potatoes, sweet potatoes, onions, garlic, green peppers, hot peppers, winter tomatoes, dried beans, dent corn, and more.

For the rest the winter and next spring, we now have 30lb of venison in the freezer, another 20 or more expected from our second kid, 7 or so chickens to butcher, possibly a goose, a small turkey, and possibly another deer. We have a chest freezer stuffed with locally sourced strawberries, blueberries, peaches, and other fruits, along with six months of our own vegetables. We have rows of canned tomatoes, pickles, jams, applesauce, and more. We have 3lb of farm-made hard cheese waxed and aging, with more to come as we're still getting 2 quarts a day off the goat. 40lb of locally grown wheat berries await grinding into flour as needed.

The only foodstuffs we'll be buying this winter are basic staples like oats, sugar, butter, oil, raisins, salt, spices, orange juice, and so on. All these store well, and we tend to buy most in large quantities. We're certainly not completely food-independent, but we sure can go a long time without needing to visit a store. And so much of our basic nutrition this winter will come from our farm or farms we know personally. That's a fantastic feeling in an era of faceless, processed, well-travelled pseudo-food.

Good farm food, early November

Meals we enjoyed (or expected to) enough to photograph. On-farm ingredients in italics.

Roasted vegetables (carrots, onions, potatoes, sweet potatoes, turnips, salt); fresh sauerkraut (cabbage, local apples, onions, salt, pepper, cider vinegar); cowpeas (cowpeas, greens, garlic, onion, spices)

Venison tacos: fresh tortillas (local wheat, baking powder, water, salt); fresh salsa (winter tomatoes, leeks, garlic, cilantro, hot pepper, spices, vinegar, water, salt); ground venison (fresh meat, leeks, paprika, garlic, salt); spiced beans (black beans, leeks, daikon radish, garlic, cilantro, spices, salt); fresh greens (various lettuces, arugula, mizuna, tat soi). Oh, my, were these especially tasty, especially with a friend/customer's home-brewed beer.
Standard Chert Hollow house salad: mixed fresh greens (various lettuces, arugula, mizuna, tat soi, beet greens), toppings (chopped local apples, raisins, and walnuts), dressed with oil & vinegar. We can't get enough of this, and are thrilled to still have lots of fresh greens in mid-November.

Now, here's a fun one. Polenta (our fresh-ground corn, water, salt) topped with goat 'n greens (shredded goat meat, green beans, mustard & collard greens, winter tomatoes, garlic, and spices). This polenta was very, very tasty, made from the same ground corn we were selling the fall. We need to have recipe cards for this next year; it was creamy, flavorful, and gone all too fast. Also very good heated with sorghum syrup or honey as a breakfast/dessert.

Columbia Farmers Market will be open in December

As a board member of the Columbia Farmers Market, I am happy to pass on some exciting news: the market will remain open into December this year. See press release below, and pass it along.

http://www.columbiafarmersmarket.org/winter_market.shtml

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Columbia, Missouri - November 17, 2009
Due to rising demand from both customers and vendors, the Columbia Farmers Market will be extending its season on a trial basis through December 19th. In years past, the Market’s season has ended just prior to Thanksgiving, with the last day of 2009 slated as Saturday, November 21. However, the continued growth in the Market’s vendor base, product diversity, and customer count, combined with increasing interest in locally-grown food in all seasons, has generated enough buzz and demand to support keeping the Market open in December.

The December market days will be held from 10 am to at least12pm on three Saturdays, December 5th, 12th, and 19th, after taking a week off for Thanksgiving. All normal CFM rules and policies will be in place, including the requirement that all products be sold directly by the grower/producer, and be grown and/or produced within a roughly 55-mile radius around Columbia.

Products expected to be available include lamb, pork, beef, eggs, winter & greenhouse vegetables, honey, locally-made chocolate, baked goods, and more. If weather conditions are not suitable for an outdoor market, an announcement will be made on the Columbia Farmers Market website and on the Market’s voicemail (573-823-6889).

With the Columbia Farmers Market set to mark its 30th anniversary in 2010, this trial winter market will be an excellent way to celebrate and support the continued growth and success of small farms and local foods in mid-Missouri.

Contacts:
Market Manager
Caroline Todd
(573) 474-0989
columbia_farmers_market@yahoo.com

Market President
Rex Roberts
(660) 886-6877
seasonsgreens@yahoo.com

Seed Savers Exchange garlic trouble

For years we've been buying our garlic starters (and many other seeds) from Seed Savers Exchange in Iowa, a non-profit which focuses on preserving and distributing heirloom and rare vegetable varieties. Their items were very high-quality, matching the price, which we felt was worth it.

We've moved strongly toward saving our own garlic, and indeed most of our planting this fall was of our own stock, but we still ordered three new varieties from SSE to round out our significant expansion in garlic, and to add even more diversity. However, when we began separating these new heads for planting in October and early November, we discovered some problems with two of them.

Both varieties, Inchelium Red and Lorz Italian, were listed as softneck garlic. This class does not have a central hard stalk, does not produce a scape, and tends to have far more cloves per head. Hardnecks, by comparison, are the opposite (hard stalk, scape, fewer but larger cloves).

As we went through the bags, we discovered some significant variations in the structures of the heads:

As shown above, the Lorz bag contained traditional softneck heads (right), very clearly hardneck heads (left), and some very screwy mutant heads with small stalks and a cluster of cloves at the top (center). And these were not isolated, but pretty well distributed between the three types. The same pattern held for the Inchelium heads, shown below:

Now, if these were just for home use, it probably wouldn't matter. But for a market farm, if these genetics maintain themselves, it will be a serious problem next year. At market, those mutant heads aren't of the same quality as others, and can't be sold for as much. Those apparent hardneck heads will be producing scapes that we need to look out for. And we have no idea if these are all really the same variety (I would think not, given that hardneck/softneck is a pretty fundamental divide in the garlic world). We'll be very hesitant to save any heads back for planting from this stock, and that's a significant loss for us.

There wasn't much we could do about it. It was late October/early November, we HAD to get our garlic in, and there were no replacements available from SSE as all stock was sold out. So we planted them and will see what happens in 2010.

All the more reason to keep working toward saving more and more of our own seed.

Mmm, fresh venison

We like hunting. It's a far cheaper way to earn the winter's meat supply than raising it. I could spend solid weeks in the woods and still come out ahead when you consider the labor and cost of actually maintaining the goats year-round and the kids for six months. And for those concerned about environmental impact, free-range medication-free deer is about as sustainable as it gets. Joanna noted that when you consider the modern concerns over greenhouse gas emissions from large herds of ruminants, some revisionist history might proclaim Buffalo Bill a notable environmentalist...

After a fruitless opening day on Saturday, despite staying on the woods from dawn to dusk, I got my deer Sunday around lunchtime. This one wins a Darwin Award; when I came into the kitchen to start heating leftovers for lunch, I saw it obliviously browsing in the open about 15' from our kitchen porch. I grabbed the rifle, gently eased my way out onto the porch, steadied the barrel on the railing, and had the easiest meat imaginable. It never even looked up, even when the microwave beeped loudly through the open door behind me. Young, stupid, and no longer in the gene pool.

We finished processing it around 9:30pm, including several breaks. We do a pretty thorough job of butchering, preferring to debone everything right away and freeze the meat in smaller quantities, saving work and waste later in the year. This way, we can bury all the bones and other scraps at once, which we'll do on Monday (after boiling some down for broth). Monday I'll also get started on scraping and curing the hide, as we do for goats, since they make nice floor coverings and we hate to waste such beautiful fur.

We did notice that she had very little fat on her, though quite healthy otherwise, with a thick coat. It'll be interesting to see how that relates to our weather this winter.

Dinner was an experimental pseudo-casserole of sliced sweet potatoes, cabbage, apples, and tenderloin, slow-baked with juniper berries, cinnamon, salt, sugar, and a bit of water. After 90 minutes in the oven, everything was tender and flavorful. Next time I'd use less sugar (called for by the Joy of Cooking recipe I was loosely following), maybe even replacing it with sorghum or honey. I would also replace some of the water with cider vinegar for a stronger flavor and more of a sweet/sour effect. Finally, I would drain the broth toward the end, make gravy from it, and put all the rest into a pie filling or top with dumplings for a shepherd's pie kind of thing. Still, for a quickly-tossed-together dinner in the middle of butchering, it was pretty tasty.

And now we have at least 30lb of fresh, healthy meat in the freezer to help us through the winter. Add on another goat, some chickens, probably a goose, and we're in good shape on the protein front.

What were we doing last November?

Blog archives are fun. I need to spend more time looking back at what we were thinking, doing, and writing about in past years. We like our organic records because they help us become better farmers; the blog archives can serve the same role.

Look back through last November's posts, for example. Lots on the organic certification process; we really sunk time into that. Lots of good food being eaten, as we were running the "What We Eat" series that chronicled all our main meals and their sources. This year is just as good; we haven't been to a grocery store in weeks now, though we're getting low on a couple staples like butter. Hunting, butchering, logging, planning...all that's happening this year too. One of the great things about farming is the combination of regular cycles with complete surprise. We have a comforting seasonal cycle which will always progress, never trapping us in any one task or routine forever, but giving us something to look forward to based upon the same events the year before.

My favorite post of the month was this one criticizing the Missouri Department of Conservation for their proposed changes to the resident landowner hunter permit system. I sent a similar text to MDC as a comment, and apparently so did a whole lot of others folks, as they reported being inundated with rage. The change was withdrawn, and rural landowners retain the right to a free hunting permit on their own land. Democracy in action, and I'm glad to have played a small part in it.