Garlic Harvest

On Monday morning in Astoria, Simone, Bianca, Becky and Nina piled into Ryan's ratty old Mercedes, "ratty and old"—like a good mink coat—is the only kind of Mercedes to own, for the 1 hour trip upstate to the farm.  The day was glorious—spring-like in July—perfect  to pull 1000's of  heads of garlic.  And the harvest time was right too: by next week some of the heads would have over ripened, split and lost their delicate skin.

This year the Porcelain variety was huge and the smaller Rocambole variety will be larger than most  other garlic sold at Union Square. And what was equally impressive were the size and number of earthworms we pulled up entangled in the roots of the garlic heads.  Earthworms inhabit fertile ground; we must thank the sheep for the soil's richness.

Last December, after I roto-tilled the aged sheep manure, mixed with hay refuse, into the  clay soil of the yard where the sheep over-wintered the year before, Dominique planted the cloves in the dark, promising soil. The garlic that we grow here follows the sheep a year behind.  This coming fall we will plant the garlic, to be harvested next summer, where the sheep were quartered last winter.  And so the Earth spins around its star across the heavens.