Love Garlic
As I look out the window, the propagation house plastic is dewy, acting as a nursery for the onions, peppers, a smattering of perennial herbs, and tomatoes. In a landscape still rich in browns, yellows, and grey, the tender green of freshly sprouted stems and leaves is a welcome sight, often eliciting a squeal of excitement. Beyond the prop house, large sheets of silage tarp we laid out flap in the wind, begging for more old tires to weigh them down. The auto shop down the road giddily dropped off a dump truck load a few weeks ago.
Winter planning and commitments mean that by mid-May, those tarps need to be replaced with hand-shaped beds, ready to receive the previously mentioned plants. Now that the snow has melted, I notice daydreaming about broadforking, moving topsoil, compost, and woodchips. If I allow myself to get lost in my thoughts, I can almost imagine the sun on my (very pale) skin, my back sore as it always is at the beginning of the season, the smell of warm compost, and the cacophony of birds' songs amplifying daily this time of year.
And then, seemingly insignificant is a corner of the garlic bed that is exposed. I push aside its winter blanket of forgotten hay (left in the pasture years ago) now acting as a mulch across the farm. The small green spears of garlic are just beginning to poke out. A little orange flag indicates where the “love garlic” was seeded. This seed has traveled with Ava and me for the past five seasons that we have grown food together. Each year, a new place. From a large production, to a community garden, and then a small raised bed in the woods outside the cabin we lived in (lovingly referred to as “leggy acres”). My hope is that this might be its home for some time, and eventually the garlic we raise and share from this place will all be descendants from the first head of 4 or 5 cloves.
Thanks for reading!
