Taste, image and lifestyle all comes into play when thinking of garlic. Garlic can take on many forms but it always tends to enhance any food it is paired with. Owner Stephen Chamberlain and his partner Beth Palmer of Dutchess Farm in Castleton, have garlic now in their veins alongside growing so many other vegetables.
Marking their second year attending Garlic Town USA in Bennington over Labor Day Weekend, it is all about understanding the possibilities of garlic but also the path it takes to bring it to the table. Sitting in their home, with a barn and greenhouse outside drying garlic and onions while they're farming land a few miles away, life is about balance. Stephen speaks of the beginnings.
“It started in 1986 with the farm itself. And we've been going all those years..
.almost 40 years.” He says garlic wasn't originally part of the plan at the very beginning of the business because there has to be a very specific strain to grow.
“It's not really like ordering,” he adds. “I guess you can order from a seed catalog, like you order your tomato seed or your lettuce.” But he says garlic's a little different, because it is about buying sets.
In terms of their first crop of garlic, they probably started five or 10 years after that initial farm. Stephen grew up in Buffalo and went to college in Binghamton where he graduated with a language degree in German and French. During college, he went down one summer to Virginia to work on a farm that was run by a few families that were friendly with his family.
“By the end of that summer, I liked it so much that I took the fall semester off of college [to work].” He says by that October, he knew in his bones that is what he wanted to do the rest of his life: just farm. “I just enjoyed it.
And that was like 1976.” Stephen came out into Central Vermont because his first job out of college was at a place called Spring Lake Ranch in Shrewsbury just south of Rutland. “There, it was a combination of farming and working with people who had disabilities.
It was an intentional community of about 40 to 50 people, and we grew a lot of our own food. That was a really great learning experience for me.” Stephen was at Spring Lake for three years but that was on the other side of the county from where he is now.
“But I realized that the tomatoes and the melons didn't grow there like they did in Virginia.” But, he continues, if one just went to the opposite side of the county (where Castleton is), there is almost a month longer growing season. “It was pretty amazing.
And some of that [has to do] with climate change." The difference, he says, is that this part of the county is what they like to call "the banana belt." "When you go up in elevation, it's just different because it is much drier.
We tend not to get too much rain here.” Part of it, according to both Beth and Stephen is that the area is somewhat protected. “It's open land, but it's not open at all sides which sometimes is a good thing,” Stephen explains.
One of the advantages, he continues, is that the harvest can come a little earlier compared to when he used to work down south of Rutland. The aspect that he likes about their current farming space: “It's prime land. It's good land.
The people I rent from are really solid and I really have had just good experiences with them. And I have a lease, so I have some security.” Originally, the land he now uses to farm was a seventh generation dairy farm.
It has been farmed since the late 1700s. When Stephen first went there, the owner gave him an option for over 200 acres. “But, for me, there was only one option, which is where I am now, because it was near a stream so I could irrigate.
The soil is also a little lighter where I am. It's just good for what I do.” He says while there are some hills there, they have the bottom piece by the stream.
“I have a field up top that we used to irrigate but it's so much more energy to run water up a steep hill.” He found what he can plant in the top field is garlic. He continues that everything they grow does require some kind of fencing.
“I don't live there, and deer can really wipe you out. [Plus] I'm not patrolling it day and night — and I don't want to be." The ironic element is that, of course, these creatures (including woodchucks) don't like garlic.
“And that's a beautiful thing,” Stephen laughs. Another aspect of garlic he now appreciates more is that mulching actually helps a lot with retaining moisture versus conventional irrigation. “We use a machine to mulch very thickly.
” In terms of growing season, he explains that garlic has to be in the ground for eight or nine months of the year. The soil, as a result, needs to be extremely well drained. Garlic can't be planted in a wet hollow or in clay.
And by putting it in the top field, there is no risk of flooding. Stephen found the strain he currently grows his garlic from (and that will be available at Garlic Town USA) from a local grower named Ray Pratt in Danby. It was a German Hardy strain.
“I believe he was growing up by Smoky House and he had some beautiful garlic that he showed me. I had known him and his wife for years.” Pratt had told him he was getting out of the business and offered to sell him this strain.
Stephen said he had tried one or two other strains including soft neck but they didn't see any reason to grow any different ones after acquiring the German Hardy. “This one worked so well for us. And it was so well liked.
People just praised it so much.” The feedback they get from people that eat their garlic is that it is just great tasting. Gardeners also love that it has nice big cloves.
Stephen also says a lot of people come and buy their garlic almost every year. He says part of their acquisition of this specific strain was just blind luck. “We bought a strain that worked really well and then we just expanded it and kept growing more of the same.
” As far as their inclusion in Garlic Town USA, Beth and Stephen say they had never done a garlic festival before. “We walked into this garlic festival [last year] site unseen,” explains Stephen. “And we were kind of blown away.
It was just really good.” He says they were expecting a decent festival as they had heard good things about it. ”It started at nine or 10 o'clock [in the morning] and there was a gate there," Stephen remembers.
"And with the opening of the gate, [it was] like these hordes came through. I got to be honest, I was blown away." Beth initially submitted their application but was surprised by the immediate response.
Stephen says the the only thing they really had to bring last year was seed garlic. “I brought like 300 pounds of seed garlic, and some hot peppers.” He said they sold about $50 of hot peppers .
.. and a lot of garlic.
“We were like, 'Wow, this is great.' And there was just so much enthusiasm.” With the new festival approaching within the next week, Beth and Stephen say they are approaching their business with new eyes.
“We want to try to trim certain parts of our business so we can devote more time to the garlic,” explains Stephen. “Beth does this beautiful dried garlic, which has a following of its own, but it comes and goes in terms of her having time to get to it. She can only do so much, and that's one thing that I know we could do a lot more of.
” Stephen says they were talking about developing the dried garlic chips for a long time. Originally, they tried it with simple slices. They also tried powder "which is obviously more convenient for a customer, because they can just pour it.
But what we found is, after a couple of months, the dried chips just held their pungency.” Beth adds that “they are like garlic chips. And some people, including one of our friends, eats them like potato chips.
Her husband doesn't appreciate it ( ) but they just hold their flavor.” Beth says that the dried slices can be crushed in your hand or placed inside garlic bread. “And it just rehydrates.
You can put it in soup or sauce when you're cooking.” She says she has got it down to a little bit of a science, but it does take time. “I would probably need to scale up with the dehydrator.
That's what holds me back. I can peel and slice a boatload of garlic, but I only have one dehydrator, so I was looking into what other higher grade dehydrators are there.” This product is undeniable and sure to be of interest at Garlic Town USA in addition to their regular German Hardy garlic.
But if demand exceeds supply, people will be able to order from their website. With the availability of these and other products, it all comes down to time for the couple, especially with what they are able to bring to the festival. “I know we can sell a lot of seed garlic," continues Stephen.
"The question is now do we have time to bring dried slices?” They do reaffirm that people can order online if they run out (though it might be on back order). The key that Stephen does explain with the dried garlic slices is that they only work if one stores it in its chip form. If it is ground up after buying, it won't keep as long in terms of the flavor.
Aside from their garlic outlay, they also do conventional share days on Tuesdays for their investors in Castleton. But they also do retail barn days on Fridays. “We don't have the display set up at the barn," explains Beth.
"But you can place an online order and come pick it up Fridays from four to six in the afternoon.” Wednesday night, she says, they send out an an email blast of everything they have. Dutchess Farm operates on the Square platform which makes payment easy.
Garlic seems like a good bet for Beth and Stephen moving forward. “You have a stable shelf life with garlic," explains Stephen. "I mean it is true to some degree also with onions.
” He is hoping to improve their garlic storage in the winter as well. As a matter of process, Stephen explains that the garlic is harvested in early July. If it is not out of the ground by the end of July, he says, it will start to rot.
They put a lot of it in their barn which is their premier drying space. They also use their greenhouse but the greenhouse tends to collect a little more humidity, he explains. The garlic then can literally just hang out until it's ready to sell, because it can tolerate temperatures actually below freezing.
They plant their garlic again in early-to-mid November before the ground freezes. However, at this same time, they are also getting out many of their other crops, like bulk carrots, bulk beets, daikons and other vegetables. However, they have recently been able to use a transplanter machine which allows them to plant their garlic crop in one day.
“There is, of course, a lot of prep that goes in ahead of it. There's soil preparation, turning in cover crops, soil tests and correct fertilization.” Stephen also explains that they have to save 400 pounds of garlic for themselves to plant from the previous season.
Towards the end of the summer, before the planting season, they clip the garlic to find out how many pounds they have left. He says the math is pretty simple. “We plant 400 pounds.
And our garlic averages five cloves per bulb which means we should yield 2,000 pounds of garlic per total yield. So, we can sell 1600.” He does say the trend is now more towards the seed producing five cloves a bulb where it used to be four.
“And I'm seeing a trend perhaps maybe towards six. And if that were the case, then we're growing upward of 2,000 pounds.” But with their business of garlic and farming, it is always evolving.
Beth explains, “We move and pivot as necessary. Always, every year we have a brainstorm to find out what we want to do differently. What do we want to grow more of? Every year, we're always tweaking and it's always changing.
” And it sounds like — in a perfect world — more garlic is on its way..
