Hi! I'm Heidi Rader here in the Alaska Garden.
I'm with UAF Cooperative Extension Service and Tanana Chiefs Conference.
I'm here in Homer, Alaska checking out all the cool things farmers are doing here
to extend the season like high tunnels, hoop houses, low tunnels and also the
other cool tools they're using as small-scale farmers.
We're here with Lori Jenkins at Synergy Gardens and she's going to tell us about the beautiful
garlic she's growing here. So, Lori you're planting several different varieties of garlic?
Lori: I have 12 different strains right now
and I've been introducing a strain or two every year to see which strains do
best in my climate - an Alaskan climate.
Heidi: Okay. And what other characteristics are you looking for?
Lori: Flavor, productivity, storage ability and which are my customer's favorites.
Heidi: Okay. And you're growing it for seed and to just eat?
Lori: Yeah, Culinary purposes. Garlic is also great medicinally, but mostly other Alaskan gardeners want to grow it.
So my Alaskan-climatized garlic seed can help other gardeners get their seed stock in Alaska.
Heidi: That's great. And have you found any varieties in particular that do really well here?
Lori: Well, I grow - there's two main strains - the hard necks and the soft necks and most
Alaskans historically grew the hardneck garlic which creates that curly curious
scape which is so delicious to eat. But the soft neck garlics I like to grow
from my history when I lived in the lower 48.
I'd get them - they're soft necks and they're braidable and I love to braid
garlic and hang it in the kitchen and that way when you're cooking or you have
friends over and you reach for garlic you pluck it off the braid and it's like
you get to harvest it all over again. And those garlics I grow outside and in
a high tunnel, so I have an earlier harvest. And the flavor is more
common to what you get in a grocery store, those soft necks. But the hard neck
ones have premium gourmet flavor. They're large cloves, easy to peel and they're juicy and much more pungent.
Heidi: And, so which varieties have you found to do really well?
Lori: A lot of Alaskan gardeners grow Chesnok Red, Romanian Red and Music variety.
I love the soft neck Lorz Italian or the Nootka Rose. Those are some of my favorites.
But I introduced the Georgian Fire and people love that.
It's hot. It's a great salsa garlic.
Heidi: Nice. So when do you - when are you planting out here in the fall?
Lori: I'll get my beds cleaned up and ready and I'll plant the very last end of September and early October.
But in my high tunnels I'll plant late October.
Heidi: Okay. Great. Well let's go check out your garlic in the high tunnel.
Lori: Awesome!
Here, come on in.
Heidi: Thanks. Wow, this garlic is doing great in the high tunnel. So it's late May and
this - when will you be able to harvest this garlic?
Lori: Early mid-July.
Heidi: Okay. And when do you think you'll harvest the garlic outside?
Lori: Early August is a good 3-4 week break. Depends actually - depends on the variety.
Oh - you asked me that question about variety. Some varieties are early mid- or late-season so here in
Alaska I do a lot of early varieties because our season is so condensed.
Heidi: Okay. Great. So you planted this garlic a little bit later than the garlic outside, but it's a lot bigger.
Lori: But it still comes in earlier. I plant it later because in our tunnel I
have to clean out what was grown before. This particular garlic was grown where I
had tomatoes last year, so I had to untrellis them and unclip them and clean
up the soil and refert the soil before I planted the garlic. So I'll work on the
outside beds first, while I have weather window and then if it rains or
if it snows outside I can always come in my amazing protected tunnel and do what I need to do.
Heidi: Yeah. It's a great place to work in the in the rain or the wind.
Lori: Yes - late October it's awesome in here.
Heidi: Yeah. That's great. And are you growing the garlic inside the tunnel for culinary use or for seed?
Lori: Way more for culinary use. When my customers may not have a tunnel
environment to plant it in and I want them to get acclimatized
garlic seed, so I'll let them know this was grown in a tunnel. And plus it comes
in early. People are just ready to eat it and they're not ready to plant in July
in August, so they're buying garlic to eat.
Heidi: And have you found a lot of differences in which varieties grow well in the high tunnel versus outside?
Lori: Everything grows better in the tunnel. I can just generalize that. It grows
faster. It grows a little bigger in the tunnel and I get to - in a tunnel - I get to
control how much water I apply, so I'm not gonna have soggy, wet, muddy garlic
like I might in a wet year outside.
Heidi: Right. Because garlic really likes more of a dry - dry soil.
Lori: Well, garlic's versatile. It can handle wet soils. It can handle maritime soils. I'm - I stay away
from a rock and bowl variety because that's more for southern climates. But every other variety seems
to do pretty good that I've trialed. But like I said, I'm really going for those
high flavor, high production and early garlics.
Heidi: Well, great. Well thanks for sharing all of your expertise with growing garlic in Alaska.
Lori: Well, it's great getting to know you better too, Heidi.