A FAMILY STORY

When I was in college I came home from class and my roommate would yell from the bathroom, “Kylynn you have a package!” She would poke her head around the corner, turn the blow-dryer down a notch and conclude: “It stinks.”

I would retrieve the package from the garage where she’d discarded it, dirt trickling from inside the mushed corners. Holding it to my nose I knew. It was garlic. And sure enough, upon opening the box I pawed through one hundred bulbs of garlic. Purple garlic, white garlic, spicy garlic, mild garlic, dirty garlic, garlic wrapped in newspaper, garlic labeled in baggies, broken garlic, big garlic, miniature garlic. With a sigh I cradled the fragrant vegetable in my hands and closed my eyes. My mom was an addict.

It started with crystals.

After all the kids had flown the coop my parents lost their minds. They gradually moved into a different house, something not uncommon for parents to do in their retirement years. What was uncommon was the house they chose - it’s bigger rather than smaller, older rather than newer and more rundown rather than nicer! Yet the land was “perfect for a garden” my mom insisted, her voice bouncing off the dirt floor and rattling through the numerous empty rooms of the hundred year old house. And so my dad grumbled and muttered and drug his feet until the papers were signed and they had officially moved their bed (three years after the ink dried) into the attic/converted master bedroom. They became residents and the garden began.

But first it was the crystals.

Crystals and rocks. Often I discovered boxes of these on my porch as well. Boxes too heavy for my roommate to lift. Boxes full of rocks. Rocks that had powers of healing and spiritual strengthening. In the baggies separating the rocks were handwritten notes by my mother,

Sleep with this under your pillow. Hold this one close to your heart. When you are stressed, open all the windows and circle this around your torso three times, counterclockwise.

Over Christmas I flew home to discover every windowsill lined with bowls of polished stones. Giant crystals served as door stops. This is when I knew my mom was both crazy and an addict (my dad too but he is less to blame). After the crystals she harbored an African Violet “nursery” that took up one and a half rooms of the house. She simply had too much time on her hands and too few kids to think about.

And finally the garlic. During my college years I was overwhelmed with the garlic. I began to eat an entire bulb in each dinner dish. My roommate did the same. Together we still couldn’t finish the last of the garlic before it either started to go bad, or the next box came. Yet I was out of the loop mostly. The garden slowly became fewer vegetables and more garlic. But mostly I was just happy to hear the weather in Montana was as cold as ever as I lay on the Florida coast with my biology book open in front of me on the sand.

That was more than a year ago. I believe that she has come to love garlic and the process of growing it so much that she literally cornered herself into selling it. Within several seasons her ferocious planting habits had resulted in so much garlic the other vegetables were only an obligation. A row of spinach was visibly sprouting from her perfected soil, surrounded on all sides by Bavarian Purple garlic. She had outdone herself. She either had to start selling for earnest or let it all rot.

And that’s the story. It’s not the one I’d meant to write. It leaves out the fact that, sure, we’ve always had a farm. As kids we grew up digging potatoes and canning pears. We’ve had every animal that you could care to list including a pot bellied pig that once consumed an entire cantaloupe in under sixteen seconds. It leaves out the skunk in the chicken coop and haying the horses with Blackie the “farm-cat”. But it’s all the important parts about the Garlic Farm.

And now, while my mom frantically finishes the harvest and hangs it to dry from the beams in the barn, it’s me who’s writing home and asking her “how long till I can harvest my garlic bulbs?” from South America where I’m gardening with third world families. And my brother has a ranch of his own with goats on his knapweed and a box of dirty garlic bulbs on his porch ready to be planted.

My sister drops her kids in the garden each week on her way to work, hatted and sun-screened, exchanging them for a few boxes of Red Janice to take to the Youth Home and feed her other kids. And well my other brother, he’s busy running away from the stench of garlic, yet I received a picture last week of him shirtless under the broiling sun, carrying an armload of harvested garlic so big that you couldn’t see his face from behind it. And my poor dad, well, you know, he’s just keeping all the bits glued together (and by that I mean ALL the sanity). So basically, The Story is that my mom went crazy because we all grew up and weren’t around to be responsible for her quirks and now the grandkids don’t do a good enough job. But crazy or not, all of us sane sideliners are still up to our necks in garlic . . .

Story Part Deux

It happened several years back. On a Sunday to be exact. Our four teenagers were otherwise occupied, and I, feeling a bit restless and sort of ornery asked Gary to take me to Darby. Darby is an interesting little town located near the south end of our valley. It's got the required number of quaint restaurants, a grocery store, several saloons and best of all a CANDY store. Yep. I was in need of a chocolate fix.

So off we went. On the way I asked Gary to stop and grab a real estate guide. Not thinking much of it, he obliged. Rather than leaf through, it fell open to a picture of an old barn. I studied the picture and something took hold. I was intrigued with this property and felt that it was somehow familiar. I marked the page and we continued on our quest for sweets.

The next morning I was off to work. Of course I took the real estate guide with me and i called the agent. I knew this house. I had passed it almost every day for years. There was a large garden that was situated at the front of the 8 acres, but what had intrigued me was that the poppies grew wild on the eastern edge. And each year they seemed to increase in number.

That very evening we looked at that house. Mr. Haycock had departed to a smaller house after losing his wife, and things were in need of repair. Ok. So EVERYTHING was in need of something. I thought I could hear the husband groan...

Looking back I'm not at all certain how or why that whole episode went down, but here we are. Lawns are green and freshly mowed, gardens are still organic (Mr. Haycock was ahead of his time!), house is fixed up, and the barn is safely guarding thousands of bulbs of garlic!

Garlic? Yes. Garlic. And lots of it.

It's funny sometimes how gardeners are. You know...some folks have the perrrrfect patch with the straightest rows and of course not one weed. Well I fall into the other camp. Small patches and areas, sometimes in a circle or crisscrossing off to the side. Garlic has helped me to be a bit more controlled and orderly.

Since I can't tell you why the purchase of this house and barn happened I will at least make an attempt to tell you why the garlic happened. So here goes...I worked Mr. Haycocks garden for two seasons. The soil was incredibly fertile. They say that this river bottom ground is the best in the valley, but from what the neighbors say, Mr. Haycock also loaded his garden with as much organic matter that he could get his hands on. It was the perfect recipe for a beautiful, fruitful plot.

One day the neighbor across the street saw me in that garden plot. His name is Don Wood and he was carrying something in his arms. I straightened up to greet him and he presented me with a small load of garlic. "I thought you might want this" he said. "It's the very same garlic that Al grew here in this garden for years and I thought it should come back to its original land." I was really very humbled by his gesture. I knew that my unusual techniques were being scrutinized by other, more seasoned gardeners and if Don thought that I could handle growing such precious seed, I was indeed honored.

I accepted that gift of garlic but was a bit bewildered. Why had I never grown any garlic? Lord knows I had grown just about everything else on Gods green Earth! So I took Dons words of advice and instruction and stored them away in my head for October. That was fall of 2008. I diligently amended, tilled, fluffed, planted and mulched my new prized garlic seed under. And in the spring of 2009 there it poked its pointy lil leaf tips up from the frosty ground. Garlic was amazing!

Later on in the summer of that same year I dug up my first garlic harvest. I was so excited to see my first bulbs that I couldn't really bring myself to eat any. It would have to be hoarded and replanted that next fall. I must grow all of it! There was no question! If my first harvest was so spectacular then imagine what my next would be! Oh boy, garlic! I was hooked. From that first harvest I realized that I was not up to speed. I mean, wow, if I went online to research, imagine what could be found out. So research I did. And dig out a credit card I must...

So I suppose my daughter Kylie is right. I literally cornered myself into having to sell it. When I accidentally ended up with 2 wheelbarrow loads (of what I now call Haycock Red) I realized that something needed to be done. If I couldn't control my growing habit, then I must find a way to share it. After all, wasting food WAS NOT an option. And so it began. My garlic sales were launched that summer of 2011 on the counter of my pet shop in Hamilton, Mt. And the rest well, is now called Garlic Farm 2021 at Pelkey Farms.