Sarah’s Spring Garlic Planting
Sarah Plath is the future. And the future is female. It may not happen overnight but it is happening. Powerful, motivated women are carving out their space in the world. And thankfully they aren’t just doing it in the old paradigm, but in the new way. The way of learning. The way of open mindedness. And the way of taking what has been done before, discarding the junk, and polishing up and running with the good parts.
And this is exciting.
Especially when we see the new crop of lady farmers coming into their own. They are fired up, they are out in the world learning everywhere they go, and they are developing their practice. And it’s going to be rad to see what they implement on their own.
And that’s where we find Sarah Plath. Sarah is a Washington native with a serious pedigree in apple farming. She is a multi-generational farmer, and is a rebellious, modern product of conventional farming distrust.
Sarah should be working her way up the chain of command in her family business. She should be accepting of their conventional/large scale farming practices. But she really isn’t.
Instead she has been traveling the world, interning, and learning from radical, female farmers. And now she is here with us. Taking what she has learned on the best educational farms and putting it to use helping us develop the best modern production farm practices possible. Sarah is pushing us and we are thankful for her.
With that in mind, This is Sarah Plath and this is her first complete solo crop with us: Spring Garlic.
We hope you enjoy the process as much as we do.
More to come,
Jason
Read the inspiration behind Sarah’s garlic field!
1. What made you want to plant garlic? So many reasons! When I worked on a farm up in Washington 2 summers ago my boss grew garlic and it became one of my favorite crops to grow. There are so many different ways you can harvest it at all different stages. For example you can harvest it early and get green garlic, also if you grow hard neck varieties you can harvest garlic scapes (which is one of my favorite things to harvest), or you can wait until they are fully grown and make garlic braids with them! Another thing my boss used to do post garlic harvest is throw a “garlic party”, she would have friends and family out to her farm and provide them with drinks and snacks in exchange from them helping to peel and clean her garlic plants. Since I somewhat recently moved to the area I thought that throwing my own “garlic party” would be a great way to grow community as well as grow the garlic itself. I have yet to have a garlic party because the garlic is not ready to be harvested yet but I have had many eager friends willing to help plant, weed, and care for my garlic with me. However the biggest reason for my decision to grow garlic is because it is delicious and an essential part of every savory meal!
2. What are you planning on doing with all of your freshly harvested garlic? I am going to make garlic braids. They will have the garlic as well as dried flowers and cooking herbs.
3. How long have you been working on these babies? I planted the garlic in the beginning of November and will probably harvest it in the beginning of June!
4. Top tips for growing garlic successfully? Plant it in the late fall, mulch it so you don’t have to weed as much, and use drip irrigation NOT overhead (I learned the last part the hard way).
5. Whats your favorite way to use garlic? I don’t necessarily have a favorite way to use garlic, like I said earlier I think garlic is an essential part of all savory meals!
