(gentle music) - Tom and I really like pickled green beans either as our meal vegetables or as a relish side dish.

We got the recipe from our friend Vivian and it calls for using garlic in the canning process.

I'm Mary Holm, host of Prairie Yard and Garden, and while garlic is not something I currently grow in our garden, today I'm going to learn how.

Join me as we all learn together, how to grow good garlic.

- [Announcer] Funding for Prairie Yard and Garden is provided by Heartland Motor Company, providing service to Minnesota and the Dakotas for over 30 years.

In the heart of truck country, Heartland Motor Company, we have your best interest at heart.

Farmers Mutual Telephone Company and Federated Telephone Cooperative proud to be powering Acira, pioneers in bringing state-of-the-art technology to our rural communities.

Mark and Margaret Yakel-Julene in honor of Shalom Hill Farm a nonprofit rural education retreat center and a beautiful Prairie setting near Windom, Minnesota.

And by friends of Prairie Yard and Garden.

A community of supporters like you who engage in a long-term growth of the series.

To become a friend of Prairie Yard and Garden visit pioneer.org/ PYG.

(upbeat music) - My mom always made lots of pickled foods and many called for the use of garlic with the brine.

There were cucumber deals, refrigerator pickles, pickled watermelon, and one of my favorites, pickled tomatoes, oh, yum.

As a horticulture event, several years ago there was a seminar on growing good garlic given by Jerry Ford.

I wasn't able to attend that seminar but when I contacted him, Jerry said, sure, he'll make a garlic grower out of me yet.

Welcome Jerry.

- Well, thank you Mary, I'm glad to have you here on our farm.

- How did you get started growing garlic?

- Quite by accident.

I had no intention of growing garlic.

I'm not a farmer by training.

I grew up in Texas and I married a farm.

My wife is a fourth generation on this farm.

So when we were going to move here back in 2002, we had a friend in the Twin Cities who said, oh you're gonna have all that land, I'll grow some garlic with you, and I can sell it to my friends in the Twin Cities, and it sounded like a great idea.

So I did some research, and oh okay, we plant in the fall, I've got some time and found some seed garlic.

Wasn't easy at that time.

And called up my friend and said, okay, we're ready, you can come on out and plant your garlic.

And he said, oh my back, so I got stuck with the garlic.

It forgave me for doing everything wrong.

And now the garlic that you're seeing here on the ground two of the varieties are from that original seed stock from 18 years ago.

- [Mary] How much garlic do you grow?

- We do about 7,000 plants.

It's difficult to measure in terms of acres, in Minnesota the largest growers of Minnesota are only two acres at the most, but everybody does it different.

So the way I plant, if I did two acres, I'd have a lot more garlic than the folks that were doing two acres.

I do a very intensive planting.

So about 7,000 plants.

- [Mary] Are there different kinds of garlic?

- Yes there are many different kinds of garlic.

As a matter of fact, we grow four, and we're growing mostly the Northern varieties.

In Minnesota, I would say that there's over 50 varieties of garlic grown, and in the country over a hundred.

- So what's the difference between the varieties?

Is it flavor, is it height?

- Well, it breaks down into two categories, to start with, two big categories, and that's what we call hard neck and soft neck.

The soft neck garlics are generally Southern garlics, and the hard neck garlics are generally Northern garlics.

So of course it's easier to grow hard neck garlics here in Minnesota because we have this little thing called winter and yeah, they do better, the hard neck garlics will do better.

- [Mary] Do you grow any of the soft neck varieties at all?

- I used to, it's hard.

They're harder to grow.

I, don't recommend it for beginners, in Minnesota start with one of the hard necks, I'm gonna throw out a couple of names, Porcelain family, Purple Stripe family, grow those first, once you get your chops with that and get good at it.

Then branch out and do some soft neck garlics, they're gonna be tough and I wouldn't wanna see people get disappointed the first time around.

- And when do you do your planting?

- Well, that's one of the most common mistakes that new growers make.

And our nurseries sometimes here don't help, because they'll have garlic, seed garlic.

And notice I'm saying seed garlic, not garlic seed.

And we'll talk about that if you want to, they'll have it out there in the bins in the spring time.

well eat it, don't plant it.

It's not gonna do well in the spring time.

Garlic needs vernalization, which is overwintering.

It needs that dormant period in the cold, in order to produce well, especially the Northern garlics.

So we generally say depending on how far, North or South you are in the state, mid-October is the safest time.

Go a little earlier, and you can plant right up until the ground freezes.

I know people who planted after the ground is frozen but that's not the recommended way to do it.

And it does fine.

- When you plant, do you plant a seed or do you plant a bulb?

- That's that thing about seed garlic yes.

Garlic is a clone.

It reproduces vegetatively like potatoes in that there is, I'm gonna qualify this, but there is no real garlic seed anymore.

Over the millennia, garlic has adapted to us and what we want and we've selected for garlic that will reproduce colonially vegetatively.

And so what we're actually planting is the same thing you eat.

So that clove, that tastes so good, and is in your pickled green beans there, that not after you pickle it, but that is what you plant, the same thing.

- Do you plant the whole garlic or bulb or do you break that apart?

- Yes, good question, break it apart.

It will still grow, if you put the whole bulb down there it'll grow but it will be what we call in the gardening business, a weed at that point, 'cause it'll just be all these stocks coming up and not having enough room to form a full garlic bulb.

But if you separate them out eight inches or so, then they're going to each one form into a new garlic bulb.

- How deep do you plant them?

- If you're going to mulch, which I highly recommend you do, put some mulch two, three inches or more on it, if you're gonna mulch just below the surface.

You don't have to go deep at all with them, especially Northern garlic because it loves cold.

- [Mary] And then you said you use corn stover as a mulch.

- That's right, and the reason I do that, it's a very technical, scientific reason, it's what I have.

we raise livestock on the farm here.

And so we have corn stover as bedding for the animals anyway.

Well, it makes an excellent mulch, it doesn't blow away, it stays in place very nicely, it holds the moisture down.

The only disadvantage is that it can get too thick and you are like, might have a hard time, when you're part of the country, there's plenty of oat straw, wheat, straw, and now rice straw is coming up.

Most people tend to avoid barley straw for the mulch, it doesn't tend to hold up as well, breaks down a little faster.

- Since you use stover, do you have to worry about mice or other critters getting at the cloves during the winter?

- I don't, they don't like the cloves, but there isn't an animal out there that will eat this.

I can't even get my cattle to eat it.

The one thing you have to worry about is if it gets too wet you never want garlic to stay in the same water.

And that's kind of an odd way of saying it.

But if it stays in the same water stagnant in a low spot, it will develop diseases.

If the water is moving through all the time, and I keep pointing at the garlic here because it's on a slope, my whole farm is on slopes.

So the water moves through.

It'll stay wet under there, but it's new water kind of coming in.

And that reduces the incident of soil-born pathogens, in that raised beds for smaller gardens, raised beds are great because that water just keeps moving through.

- [Mary] So do you rotate the area where you plant each year in order to prevent a disease or insect buildup?

- That's the second mistake and you got the first one when to plant, the second one is where to plant.

And the point is do not go back to the same place for four years, four year rotation.

And that's other alliums too, if you're growing onions or scallions or leaks or anything like that, the diseases, the critters that are in the soil, that are in all soil around here, they just, they will build up, they'll get attracted to it, and I'm using imprecise language, but, and they'll build up in that area.

And pretty soon they'll just reach critical mass and they'll wipe you out.

But if you rotate every four years then they don't build up.

- [Mary] Then do you pull the mulch off?

- No, no it's not one of those three mistakes, but you can, it's okay to pull the mulch off.

But unless people just really enjoy reading.

I don't, the mulch is doing you all that favor of keeping the weed suppressed and helping to regulate that moisture.

You don't have to water as much, before this year, I had not watered my garlic irrigated, I guess in this size, my garlic for seven years.

Now remember we're harvesting in July.

So the hottest part of the year, we're pretty much done but for seven years I didn't have to water it, this year.

I've watered twice.

I have water lines coming through the pasture even though we're an eighth of a mile away from the house I have water lines in the pasture under high pressure so I can put sprinklers down here.

So yeah, I use sprinklers, a lot of people will use when they have to they'll use drip tape and just run it even sometimes under the mulch - [Mary] Jerry, how do you know when they're ready to harvest and how do you harvest?

- The way that I judge and everybody has their own.

It's more of an art than a science, the way that I judge is that there are leaves at the bottom up to the top.

And the bottom leaves you can see there are starting to go brown.

There's actually one leaf that's completely gone already.

And then the second leaf is that brown shriveled thing, and third leaf is about ready to go.

I do three leaves that tells me when it's ready to go.

So these aren't quite ready.

It's okay to pull them, but they they'll put on some more size.

But yes, we can go ahead and pull these, we did some this morning, just what I call an exploratory harvest.

And then we stopped because we said, nope, they'll get a little bigger.

And then these actually with the mulch on them, I can pull them straight up out of the ground.

And I have people with younger backs than me, help me out and they will just pull them out.

And every now and then you'll run into one that won't pull out.

So that I don't embarrass myself.

I'm gonna go ahead and dig one, just by going straight down, so I don't nick the bulb, you see how easy that out of there, and this is in our book, this is a small garlic.

I didn't wanna pull one of my big ones yet.

You don't get those.

So yes, this is a Armenian variety comes from the country of Armenia.

And they're lovely, there's only one, two, three, four cloves in there.

So those cloves are like Brazil nut size in this small one, in the big ones, any recipe that says, use one clove of garlic throw it out, because that's a really big clove of garlic.

They need to tell you ounces or grams or something.

Cause most of our Northern garlics have really big cloves.

But it's as simple as that, if your ground is nice and moist and supple a lot of organic matter in the soil, they'll just pull right out of there, especially the hard neck garlic.

So you can hardly bend that stock.

So once we've done that harvest, the next step is curing.

And I'd love to show that to you as well Mary.

- That would be great.

(upbeat music) - I have a question, I'm thinking of incorporating containers in my landscape.

What are your suggestions on how to get started?

- First of all, you should consider the space where you're gonna be placing the container.

Scale is very important because placing it next to a and two and a half story building such as here.

Choices need to be one and a half times the height of the container.

So if this container is like three feet tall therefore we can do something probably four and a half feet tall in it.

There's many different types of containers.

I chose these large plastic type, that can be outside all winter.

They give and take with froth, and we use these containers year round.

So, we can do spring displays, summer displays and winter displays.

Depending on location like here, it's shady.

So I chose to use shady plants.

I used trailing plants, upright plants and fillers.

Trailing plants, I used in this particular container, Algerian ivy on the corners.

I used wandering jew, wire plants, coleus, which comes in very different color combinations, and also impatience with the tree accent of the Japanese maple.

Soil is very important, you can do one part Pro-Mix to one part soil, sterilized soil is good, but when you get this size of a container, you just might not be able to do that.

It needs to be well drained, fill the container with pebbles or stones on the bottom.

Fertilizing is very important.

You need to use a slow-release fertilizer, something like a 14, 14, 14.

Also you should follow up with fertilizing probably once a week with a liquid fertilizer.

Containers are great, they provide an easy place to garden in.

They can create a dramatic setting on our terrace such as this, and, they can be something you have for one season but you can also garden in them, spring, summer, fall and winter - [Announcer] Ask the Arboretum Experts has been brought to you by the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum in Chaska.

Dedicated to enriching lives through the appreciation and knowledge of plants.

- So once we are done with that harvesting process then it's time for curing.

And the reason that we cure garlic is so that it will mellow the taste some, 'cause fresh garlic right out of the ground is very hot.

It has a lot of burn to it.

If we cure it then it mellows that burn and it stores better.

Well cured garlic in Minnesota will store, if you store it properly at home, will store for upwards of nine months to a year.

We've actually been harvesting garlic sometimes and serving our harvest crew garlic from the previous year.

So it stored for a year.

The curing process, a lot of people say drying and drying is part of it.

But what you're going for is you want these outer leaves, and this is a nice Porcelain garlic, German porcelain.

You want these outer leaves, which are the outer rappers.

They're on the bulb to dry down.

At the same time, you want the inside those cloves, that stuff you're gonna eat to stay moist.

It's like you're making a package that wraps around there and seals in the moisture.

Which is why we leave the roots on.

I even leave the dirt on and leave the top of the plant on there.

It's absorbing all that energy down into the bulb, The roots are actually still taking up some moisture from the air.

We're sealing it in with drying the outer wrappers lower leaf, outer wrapper, this top leaf, that's the one right next to the cloves inside the bulb.

We want that one still moist.

Then after about three weeks of lots of airflow and trying to reduce the humidity, if you can, but you want lots of air flow and not direct light.

You don't want it totally in the dark, 'cause what we're also trying to avoid is mold.

There is a mold called Embellisia that will develop on the garlic, if it doesn't get enough airflow and there's not indirect light.

So that's what we're going for.

And then what we do here is we'll take them and bundle them into a staggered bundle, so that each bulb is still gonna get really good airflow.

We use a zip tie color-coded so that I know which variety I'm looking at.

And zip tie it up.

And then I use good old fashioned shower hooks.

These weren't easy to find, we put it on like this, and inside the curing shed, we have wires strung across the ceiling.

And that will just hang on that wire, especially when it's tight and hold the garlic up out of the way.

So we can get lots of air flow.

And then at about three weeks, I'll start testing it.

And what I do is I clip, take one of these out of here.

I clip it just above, just above the bulb about an inch.

And if I can clip that and no liquid comes out, then I know I've sealed all that good garlic juice in there and it's cured and ready to go.

Then when you take it home, treat my babies well.

Do not put them in a dark cupboard, do not put them in the refrigerator, put them out in the open air flow, not direct light, but they want light.

And they're gonna store for you for a good long time.

- How do you get the air movement that you were talking about to cure the garlic?

- Well, because we're in an enclosed shed, you can do it out in like a three-sided shed or someplace where the wind just blows through, and that might be sufficient enough.

But because I do it in an enclosed shed, I have a lot of fans.

Fortunately, our farm has solar panels and they earn their keep at this time of year because I'm running big fans and a dehumidifier in there.

And I'm trying to do it quickly.

You don't have to do it as quickly as I do but often we're trying to get ready for the Minnesota Garlic Festival.

So we're usually scrambling to get enough ready for the garlic festival.

So that's why I force it a bit with lots of fans and dehumidifier.

- Now, out in the field, you said that the garlic that you pulled and harvested and showed to us was a fairly small one, how do you determine the size of a garlic?

I mean, what measures it?

- Well, what I do and I learned this from somebody else.

I wish I could take credit for it.

We have several of these sizers, we call them, and you take the garlic bulb, and you start passing it through the nails and where it stops, well, that says large on there, and that, so, okay, that's a large, and then we bundle the sizes together.

So I can look at a bundle and look at the sign at the end of it and say okay, those are all large.

And now I know what I can sell of that.

'Cause I saved my large stuff for my seed stock.

If you want big garlic plant big garlic.

Yes, a good Northern garlic will size up over time.

But if you wanna start off with big garlic by big garlic.

- [Mary] So you keep some of your crop then to use for planting the following fall?

- [Jerry] I keep a fourth of my crop, 25% goes back in the ground.

- Jerry, what do you do for longterm storage for the garlic?

- Well, I usually get it out of this curing shed by freezing.

But by that time it's usually our own eating garlic, and stuff we're going to have for ourselves.

Most of our garlic is usually sold by the time we're getting freezing weather.

So I don't have to worry much about storing a great deal of it long term.

If you did, you can leave it in bundles like this, it will store just fine.

It will actually tolerate down to freezing, just quite well.

You don't wanna let it get down to 28 or less for any length of time though.

So it's gonna need to move into someplace that's heated eventually.

But you don't want it in a moist place.

Don't put it in the root cellar, too moist too dark, the main problem is it'll get mold.

- Where do you put your seed garlic so that it keeps for fall?

- I keep them right here in these bundles and that's October, we're usually not freezing yet.

And we just take the bundles right down to the field and break them up out there.

- Where do you market all of your beautiful garlic?

- Our main market for our farm, because we're certified organic, and because we built up a reputation as a good source for seed stock for both gardeners and for other commercial growers, most of our customers are going to plant the garlic.

I often get calls though they say, oops, we ate our garlic.

Can you get me some more for seed?

And we love that kind of customer.

So, most of them again are going to plant the stuff.

And that's one of our niches.

We have a website livingsongfarm.com, and then we have loyal customers who just love garlic to eat.

And they'll buy a lot from us too.

If it's good to plant, it's good to eat.

- Tell me about the garlic festival - Minnesota Garlic Festival, Nobody's more surprised than we are, that it's been going on for 15 years now.

But about three to 4,000 people come to the festival in Hutchinson, second Saturday in August every year.

And go home smelling completely different.

(Mary laughing) And that is one of the places I sell a lot of garlic, we'll sell, well, maybe a fourth of our crop in one day at the garlic festival.

And there's 14 other growers there who are just selling just as much.

It's amazing how much garlic will get sold at that festival.

- How did it get started?

- It was kind of on a dare.

I was sitting with a friend of mine, another farmer, and we both work with Sustainable Farming Association, and he said, we need some big event out in the countryside.

It's all about local foods, strong rural communities sustainable farming, organics, regenerative farming.

We need a big event like that.

There was a couple of beers involved with this and I said, why not?

Let's do a garlic festival, ha ha.

He said good, write a business plan.

We got halfway through the business plan before we found ourselves doing garlic festival and 750 people showed up the first year with no advertising and off we went.

- Oh, it sounds like a fun time.

(gentle music) Thank you so much, this has been very interesting, and I just think you have may be converted and made me into a garlic grower too.

- Oh I thank you Mary, it's been a pleasure.

- [Announcer] Funding for Prairie Yard and Garden is provided by Heartland Motor Company.

Providing service to Minnesota and the Dakotas for over 30 years in the heart of truck country.

Heartland Motor Company, we have your best interest at heart.

Farmers Mutual Telephone Company and Federated Telephone Cooperative proud to be powering Acira, pioneers in bringing state-of-the-art technology to our rural communities.

Mark and Margaret Yakel-Julene, in honor of Shalom Hill Farm, a nonprofit rural education retreat center and a beautiful Prairie setting near Windom, Minnesota.

And by friends of Prairie Yard and Garden, a community of supporters like you, who engage in a long-term growth of the series.

To become a friend of Prairie Yard and Garden, visit pioneer.org/PYG.

(gentle music)