The View on Growing Garlic with Joanna Guza

It's good for you.

But not as good as garlic.

Yeah.

Speaking of garlic, Joanna, why don't you just give us kind of some rundown of, you know, garlic's kind of an interesting crop choice.

So like, how did you guys get started into it? And I feel like you're increasing every year too.

So it's growing.

So just give us kind of the history.

Yeah, so we were looking for a crop that we could grow on a small amount of acres.

So we only own two and a quarter acre right now.

And garlic is a crop you can grow on a small plot.

So where we grow our 400 pounds, it's only 100 foot by 30 foot area.

So my husband approached me.

He said, what are your thoughts about growing garlic? You love to eat it.

You love to garden.

Why don't we, you know, try doing this? So I didn't even know how to grow garlic.

It was something I never grew as a child or anything.

So I looked into it and I actually learned what you buy from the store is actually soft neck garlic.

So softneck garlic grows in warmer climates, so like California, Mexico, those areas.

And what we grow is hardneck garlic.

So it requires going through a cold cycle.

So we plant it in the fall, usually the end of October, early November, and then we'll harvest in July, and then it takes time to cure.

So it is more pungent, bold flavor, spice, everything compared to the soft neck garlic that you buy in the store.

We do have some varieties that aren't as powerful, but most of our flavor like varieties, if you eat them raw, you will taste it in your mouth for three days or more because it is pretty hot.

So where did you learn all your garlic knowledge, though? Like, is there garlic school you go to or where did you learn about everything garlic if you had no history in it?

We did talk to a local farm.