Cork Garlic Farm Update

You may remember we reported from the West Cork Garlic Farm earlier in the year. It's a project we're very excited about as it gives us a source of Irish produced top quality seed garlic. I include the latest report from Axel and Marye Miret from Enniskeane where they let us know how they're getting on with the 40,000 bulbs they planted this season.

You may remember that all the planting, harvesting and weeding is being done by hand in the old fashioned way to protect the bulbs and minimise the use of chemicals on the crop.

Marye, forever the perfectionist, is sending us up some samples of their first harvest to make sure it passes muster for our Autumn selection. We will have a mix of Irish and Isle of Wight varieties this year as Marye and Axel already have a thriving culinary garlic business and can't spare us too much of their precious seed. We look forward to offering our garlic pick and mix range with some interesting new additions on last year and hope to continue the great success we had last Autumn.

Anyway, enough from me, how's it going down there Marye?

The hot Summer days have seen West Cork Garlic out in the fields, harvesting and cleaning for all we're worth. It is amazing to be able to leave the garlic out to start drying in windrows after they've been lifted.

The best of our crop so far this year are the Iberians, Albigensians and elephant garlic, which are really excellent with the Albigensians being particularly lovely.  The Albigensians are a favourite of mine as the flavour is full but fairly mild, which makes it excellent for use raw in vinaigrettes, pestos, etc.

We've got several varieties still in the ground, hope to have them all up by early August, so we'll keep you informed. We're also considering selling the scapes (flowering stems) of the elephant garlic as cut flowers next year. Have a look at the photo and see what you think - very dramatic!