Battle River Garlic

In 2011, a work friend of Dan's with a passion for garlic started us off with a handful of cloves and a basic understanding of how to grow garlic. We planted them in our vegetable garden and were surprised when they came up the following spring! At that time we were living in the Southern Kootenays. The climate was moderate. Very hot summer days reaching highs in the mid 30s and cold winter days averaging -15 but getting down to -20 several times throughout the season. That first year we made pickled carrots with dill, garlic and carrots from our very own garden! They were amazing.

After a successful first try we kept at it and planted about double the following fall. Another successful harvest allowed us to share our bounty and passion with friends and family.

In 2013, we made a major, and very last minute move to Wetaskiwin, Alberta. Temporarily moving in with Dan's brother and his wife. Dan approached his Dad who has a small acreage just South/East of town and inquired about using a portion of his garden space for garlic. Explaining his passion to grow and eventually sell garlic. That fall Dan planted 180 cloves. A harsher winter climate was stressful. He drove me crazy wondering if the garlic was going to survive. ALL WINTER LONG! It was a real relief when it started to poke through the ground in the spring.

Fall of 2015 brought the largest planting so far. A large portion of the field was turned into a garden and 3400 garlic were hand planted. The weeding was back breaking and we have learned a lot that year. With a few well thought out changes we hope to have a smoother and less strenuous 2016/2017 growing season!

We planted approx 5000 garlic in the fall of 2015. Actually Dan planted it, in the snow! I helped for approx 1 row and then ran home sheepishly. The funnies part was had we waited 1 more weekend we would have been planting in the beautiful fall sunshine. Alas! An extra nub was added to our homemade hole maker and our rows were expanded to 4 garlic as opposed to 3. We also got another hard neck variety to try from a friend of ours. We planted a few bulbs of Music to see how it does here in the cold Alberta winters.

The 2016 Harvest was good but HOT! It was 26 degrees! With the help of my sister in law, nephew and father in law, it took 3 days and many long hours but all of the garlic is out of the ground and curing. We also learned a few valuable lessons.

It seems the Music and the Georgian Fire did quite well. We will be planting both varieties again to grow our seed stock so none of those will be available again this year.