This month we have been lucky enough to be part of Clarissa Dickson-Wright's programme,
The Great British Food Revival. Clarissa, a veteran food lover and cook, explores the history
of garlic's use in British cuisine in her first episode much of which is filmed with us on The
Garlic Farm. Tune in to BBC 2 at 8pm on Wednesday 26th October to watch the programme.


In the meantime, we've been concentrating on the start of our planting season. As soon as
this year’s crop was out of the ground we started to make plans for the 2011 garlic crop.
Rainfall has been sufficient to moisten the ground and make ploughing conditions ideal.
The field we are using this year had a heavy crop of milling wheat harvested at the end
of July.

We now plough in the stubble and fertilise and prepare it to plant the garlic cloves..

First in the ground is the Elephant garlic, all planted by hand as no planter can place the
cloves that weigh ¼ to ½ lb each the right way up just under the ground. Within a week
their massive root system is probing into the soil and drawing on all the nutrients and
moisture which will hopefully produce monster bulbs next June for the first part of the
garlic harvest as Green Garlic, also referred to as Wet Garlic.


Eschalote grise follows, the still undiscovered shallot of the mountain slopes of Northern
Afghanistan. Small, intense bulbs that bleed white milk when cut – perfection chopped on
fresh oysters. It sounds so much better in its French guise rather than ‘grey shallot’, the
direct English translation. Again, hand planted for best results in June, each set produces
at least 15 shallots on top of the ground.

Our first true garlic planting comes towards the end of the month with Early Wight, the
early purple garlic that gives us such welcome bulbs in the middle of the asparagus season
in May. Originating from China, like most Chinese garlic, it tends to crop earlier than
Mediterranean and other types. Fresh and zingy in taste in May it is at its best immediately
after harvest. There are too many other good garlic to follow to try and conserve it.

You may well find my recent trek to the Northern Turkey in search for Allium Longicuspis,
"The Mother of all Garlic" of some interest - watch below.