Today I'm talking with Christi at The Garlic Farmers. If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee - https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes 00:00 This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. This morning I'm talking to Christi at The Garlic Farmers. Good morning, Christi. How are you? Good morning, Mary. I'm great. How are you? I'm all right. Did you guys get a little bit of rain like an hour ago? I do not think it looks like it. Like it could, but we did not. 00:29 I'm wondering if today will bring some rain. Yeah, we got a sprinkle here and I'm only about half an hour from you. So yes, I'm near New Prague and New Market. Are you by St. Peter? Yeah, we're in the store. Okay. So all right. So tell me all about what you do. Well, we live between New Prague and New Market and we live on 10 acres and we've been here for 00:54 24 years and we've always loved gardening, I guess growing up in 4-H. And my husband's from Iowa and his grandparents and parents farmed for a while. And so when we moved here, it just kind of made sense to have a garden and that was mainly to feed our family and just really enjoying things like salsa. And my husband was, for years, grew tons of tomatoes and we still do. But at 01:22 At the beginning, he would make hundreds of jars of salsa and juice for chili and just eat all year and give away and enjoy the fruits of the labor. It ends up being more work than you always think, but it always feels like an accomplishment. And so we have six kids and I always loved it in summers. And when the harvest started coming in, then I could buy less groceries, you know, if we could have our own. 01:51 cucumbers and BLTs and make chili, but take the tomatoes right out of the garden and that kind of thing. And then about three or four years ago, I think maybe four actually, kind of a funny story. I saw a bill on our dresser and it was just a handwritten receipt really. And it said, garlic, $252. And I said to him, 02:17 wait, what's happening here? What did you buy? You bought garlic? Like I thought maybe to put in his salsa or, and he had said some, you know, talked a little bit about researching growing garlic, but I was like, wow, he's serious. And if you know my husband, he does everything big. So I wasn't joking when I said a couple hundred tomato plants, a couple hundred pepper plants, 150 pepper plants, like he. 02:40 He is very diligent and hardworking, and he has a day job, of course, but at night he likes to have something to do. He never sits on the couch, maybe on Christmas, I'm trying to guess. If he ever sits on our couch, he's just very active. And it's taught our kids, they're now grown, but our youngest is 16, but taught our kids about work too. They're hard workers, and they got to spend a lot of time with us outside, which is what you do when you have 10 acres, there's always a project. 03:10 But the garlic thing started where he went to somebody's house and bought garlic from them. And then the next year we went to the garlic festival and bought some more garlic. And it really is fun to grow because it's not easy, it's work and the level we're at, it's a lot of work. But if you just have a small patch, I think people really enjoy it because you can put it in the ground and then just let it be. And then you have to deal with it starting in the. 03:37 in the summer really, you know with weeding and stuff there's a little bit but I don't even know how many bulbs and cloves he planted that year, I suppose a few hundred. And then last year we harvested 5,000 and this year we harvested about 15,000 bulbs. So it has grown quickly and turned into a little bit of a business in that now people 04:02 want our garlic and are coming back for the second year. Last year was the first year we sold, lots of repeat customers. A few said, no, your garlic grew so well, I don't need any, I'm just replanting. Because every year we replant about 20 to 25% of our crop and then you end up with really strong, I'm not sure how it's exactly explained, but like a strong lineage if you keep replanting your garlic and then we sell some, we eat some, we give a lot away. 04:31 Um, and it's, uh, also been a whole nother aspect of it. He, um, we have a freeze dryer, which we kind of bought also just to start preserving our own stuff and freeze drying very different than dehydrating. Um, I mean, dehydrating is awesome too, but freeze drying takes out even more of the moisture and technically you hear of people, you know, you can freeze dry. 04:56 mashed potatoes and gravy, lasagna. I mean, I know a gal who has a thousand meals in her basement, freeze dried, and I think she does it for fun and kind of just to have food any time, but...
