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Winter
 It's hard to believe as we look at the garlic fields covered with snow in sub-zero weather that in a few short months we will be blessed with a new vibrant crop of garlic. We planted predominantly German and Polish White porcelain verities of garlic this year for our wholesale garlic and bottled products.
We are busy planning our 2004 Tradeshow schedule and hope to see all of you who enjoy our products and support us throughout the year. We love to hear from you so if you know of a good tradeshow in your area, a store that may like to carry our products, a new recipe or just want to say "hello", please drop us an email. We wish everyone a safe and productive 2004 and we look forward to seeing new and old friends throughout the year.
Spring
Last year ended with a flourish and this year is starting just where we left off last year. Fall is always "crunch" time at the farm. It is the time when we are in the midst of another busy tradeshow season. We have to get the fields ready to plant and the all the garlic "popped" and ready to plant. 2003 was a particularly busy year and we were wondering if we were going to get everything done.
We planted more garlic this year than we ever have in the past. We plant by hand (if you can believe it!) and without the help of a great staff, good friends and family members we would never have got as much garlic in the ground as we did. A big "Thank You" goes out to all those who helped.
Summer
 The buzz word for now is weeds. We went right from winter to spring to weeds. We have to weed by hand, so it takes a small army to keep up with it. Each year it seems we move directly from one season to the next a little bit faster, and weeding is never fun!
However, we also harvest - hundreds and hundreds of pounds of fresh scapes. For those of you who don’t know, the scape is the center stalk of the garlic plant and is filled flavor. You snap the scape of the plant to aid the garlic bulb that is growing in the soil. The scape is distinguished by its twisting, almost spiral curve. They are great to use when cooking. We have several Chef’s in our area that eagerly await the scape season. We cut them when they are still a bit succulent. The scape is the first taste of fresh garlic we get each year. They are great in salads or sautéed and used for fresh garlic flavor.
Our irrigation system has been frequently used this past two weeks. We have had excellent temperature and sun but little rain over the past two weeks. In the morning for an hour and in the afternoon for an hour we give the crop a gentle watering. Things look good.
Its harvest season - enough said! We are busy on all fronts at the farm. It looks like we have a bumper crop of garlic to bring in this year. We have more scapes than we know what to do with. The production kitchen is in full gear.
Fall
This is the time of year when life at the farm becomes so busy it’s hard to know which way to turn. It is also quite possibly the best time of the year. All the fields are tilled and ready to plant, the new garlic is popped and ready to go and it’s always one more tradeshow, farmer’s market or store demo to do. Again we will plant predominantly porcelain variety garlic.
The Hudson Valley Garlic Festival in Saugerties, NY is great and if you have never been you should go. From what I can tell, it is the largest garlic festival on the east coast. It is just a good time. Last year the weather was perfect. Skies were bright blue. Temperature was in the mid-seventies and there was slight breeze. In this line of work it helps to sell out products at the garlic festival because everyone (or 99.9% ) loves garlic and we don’t have to do much talking to get people to try out products. So let’s hope the weather holds for the next few week and we can all out garlic planted in good weather. Look for us at on our fall tradeshows.
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