Whidbey Island's Greenbank Farm Community Garden Farmer's Market
I love garlic all types, all sizes, all shapes. When I am out in the world, especially on holiday which often ends up at a farmer’s market, farm, or roaming through a foreign countryside, I always look for garlic. Garlic people are good people. They understand and can explain the nuances of one garlic from another, often a testament to their outlook on life, the singular differences, uniqueness, and specified uses for something that is seemingly the same. Garlic. In it’s paper-sheathed clove, the blunt root end and the pointed stalk end a hidden treasure of flavor and memory.
Don’t be shy about planting garlic, as an allium it has a wonderful stalk that lends interest to the garden, a scent that deters deer, moles, rabbits and other critters, and has an edible scape which is delicious sauteed with butter and spooned over rice early in the season. Garlic can be interplanted just about anywhere in the garden keeping in mind that it is harvested typically in June (weather permitting).
As we enter the rainy season in our region it is time to get that last mulch layer into place. Rain compaction is the secret thwarter of healthy soil systems so be sure to layer with leaves, compost, straw, or a late cover crop to prepare the soil for spring planting.
