An Ode to Garlic
Edible Santa Fe
Last fall, my husband and I were in the process of moving uphill to
richer soil and reliable water - hopefully the final resting place for
our small farm. We had not found time to turn over ground at our new
farm, so we needed a temporary place to grow our annual garlic crop,
which needs to be planted in the autumn.
We ended up borrowing a plot from another grower. The new garlicfield was out along one of the main roads of our very small NorthernNew Mexico village, right across from the roadside mailboxes. Thismeant that anyone driving by or stopping for their phone bill could seeus out there mulching, spreading rabbit manure, dibbling holes into theearth and dropping each clove carefully (pointy end up) into itslate-autumn burrow.
Many of them stopped to talk and ask us what we were planting andtalk about their own gardens. People up here appreciate it any timesomeone cultivates the earth - so much of that tradition has been lost.
At the time, I had not seen my friend Nicole in several months.Despite many attempts over the years to introduce our children - herdaughter is only six months older than our little girl - we hadn’t yetmanaged to get them together to play. Even up in the mountains, wherethe distraction of Starbucks was more than an hour away, our lives weretoo busy.
Driving by one day in late October, Nicole saw us out there,planting our garlic. She stopped to talk and again suggest we gettogether with the girls. During the conversation about kids and garlic,chopping wood and the approaching winter, Nicole smiled and rubbed herbelly and said, “I think I might be pregnant again. I’m not sure yet.”
It turned out that she was pregnant. This winter, as her baby grew,Nicole and I finally managed to get together, and by early summer whenthe garlic was knee-high our girls were frolicking together through thefields, getting muddy in the ditches and trying to herd kittens intothe god-awful pink Barbie dollhouse we keep out under the poplar trees.
And in early July, we were harvesting our garlic while Nicolewaited, and waited, for her daughter to be born. On a stormy Friday, wespent the afternoon snipping roots off the German Hardy garlic andfinally got the call - little Cleo was born.
This is one reason, perhaps, why we grow garlic: Garlic seems tofollow the bend and slope of our lives and the changing seasons unlikeany other crop we’ve grown.
Each year we put garlic into the ground during those last few weeksof dying light when it seems we’re fading away into nothingness.There’s nothing left to do. The harvest is in. We’ve canned the plumsand the pumpkins have been pulled and put into the cellar, for fearthey’ll frost in the field. The winter solstice is just weeks away -every day grows darker, colder. We race against winter to get thegarlic in the ground — many times we have waited so long that we end upplanting in a snowstorm.
And then we sleep - and the garlic sleeps. Each time it snows wesnuggle together under the down blankets and whisper, “This snow is sogood for the garlic.” And the snow acts as a blanket - it tricklesmoisture into the soil in a way no rainstorm can: a slow, soft drip.
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