We love garlic at Root Bottom Farm. Garlic Fest in Asheville was a huge success and a lot of fun.
At Garlic Fest we sold garlic, garlic samplers, our homemade garlic butter, I LOVE Garlic buttons, Root Bottom Farm stickers and root crops.
Root Bottom Garlic Butter. Our organic garlic, our herbs. Great on EVERYTHING
The Spring and Summer gardens have been pulled out, tilled and composted in preparation for our big 2015 garlic planting this week (Projecting about 8,000 bulbs)
This weekend we cracked all 80 lbs into individual pieces to be planted.
We currently grow 13 varieties for garlic. Above: (top L to
R) Elephant, Red Russian, Music & Creole Red. We sell our garlic at
local farmers markets, Asheville restaurants and online.
THE
SPICE OF LIFE: The two basic categories of garlic are hardneck and
softneck, and there are numerous varieties running the flavor gamut from
mild to spicy-hot. Photo by Carla Seidl
“Garlic can be hot or spicy,” says Sarah Decker of Root Bottom Farm in Marshall. “Or it can be hot AND spicy.” In their 12-variety garlic sampler, she and husband Morgan sell varieties with names like Thai fire, Sicilian silver and German red.
“I like the heat, and I like the robust flavor that you can get while
cooking,” says Sarah. In contrast, the garlic you buy in the
supermarket is milder, with a less complex flavor. As she puts it, it’s
“consumer-safe.”
There are two general categories of garlic: hardneck and softneck.
Hardnecks have an edible stalk, called a scape, growing through the
center of the bulb. You can eat the scape raw or sautée it. “It’s almost
like a bean — a garlic bean,” says Morgan.
Supermarket garlic is usually of the softneck type, which stores
longer than hardneck and lacks the hardneck’s defining scape. California
silverskin is the most common supermarket variety and has extra-good
shelf life due to its tightly wrapped skins. Hardneck is more commonly
found at farmers markets.
Garlic’s health-promoting reputation is deserved: It has
anti-bacterial, anti-viral and anti-inflammatory properties as well as
cardiovascular benefits. In addition, it’s rich in trace minerals
manganese and selenium, as well as a variety of other vitamins.
In her book, Eating on the Wild Side, Jo Robinson recommends
either eating garlic raw or letting it rest for 10 minutes after
chopping or pressing before adding it to your cooking in order to reap
maximum health benefits. While any kind of garlic is good for you,
Robinson explains that hardneck garlic, being closer to wild garlic, may
have retained more medicinal properties.
Before starting Root Bottom Farm four years ago, Morgan Decker farmed
garlic in Vermont and Utah. Sarah was a photography professor and grew
up on a small farm in Virginia, where her dad hunted and raised animals
and had a small garden. “I like eating food that I know the source of,”
she says.
The Deckers farm 5 1/2 acres of bottomland along a creek. Such flat
land is rare in hilly Madison County. The property was formerly a
tobacco farm, which the couple revitalized over a two-year period with,
among other efforts, 65 trips to the landfill.
The couple farm organically, spraying nothing, and not even using a
tractor. They even plant by the moon — a habit that comes from Sarah’s
father and to which Morgan has agreed, though qualifying, “only if it
works out.” So far, it’s always worked out.
VARIETY
PACK: With their 12-variety garlic sampler packs, Root Bottom Farm
owners Sarah and Morgan Decker hope to spread the word about the many
types of garlic that can be grown in Western North Carolina. Photo by
Carla Seidl
Still, the lack of a true cold snap in this area can be challenging
for garlic, especially hardnecks, and the Deckers have found it’s best
to leave some varieties to the folks in Maine and Minnesota. “This is
kind of on the warmer side of the garlic-growing spectrum,” Morgan says,
“so you have to choose the right varieties.”
Normally, garlic undergoes a curing process, in which the paper skins
become fully formed for storage and the flavor intensifies. The Deckers
cure their garlic in the rafters of the old tobacco barn, but they also
start to sell garlic as soon as they dig it up (in June or July,
depending on the variety). Morgan says fresh garlic is juicier. He
explains that chefs, especially, like it because freshly dug garlic’s
paper isn’t fully formed, so they don’t have to go to the trouble of
peeling the skin off each clove.
Garlic’s ability to store means the Deckers don’t have to sell their
garlic right away. Softneck garlic can be stored in a cold, dark, dry
environment for six months, hardneck for three to five. With the right
conditions, they can last all winter in a cellar or fridge. “We like the
longevity that root crops provide,” says Sarah.
The couple specialize in root crops and grow carrots, potatoes and
beets, in addition to garlic, but they also grow and sell other crops,
including microgreens, berries, herbs and flowers.
“We like to use everything,” Sarah says. From leftover, small garlic
bulbs not big enough to sell for seed or consumption, she started making
an organic, herbed garlic butter, which is one of their main
value-added products.
The Deckers want people not just to buy and eat their garlic cloves
but also plant them. They sell their garlic sampler in part to spread
the varieties of garlic that do well here and to keep the diversity of
garlic strains alive.
Reading the descriptions on Root Bottom Farm’s garlic sampler, I’m
especially intrigued by their Music variety: “An aromatic, slightly
spicy, incredibly flavorful garlic. Potent heat that is balanced by the
spiciness. Good in mashed potatoes.”
I will have to catch up with them again soon to try it out.
Find Root Bottom Farm at the West Asheville or Mars Hill tailgate markets, or visit rootbottomfarm.com. This story was originally posted at Earth Flavors,
a website profiling local ingredients in Asheville and Western North
Carolina. Carla Seidl is the founder and producer of Earth Flavors.
