Exponential love of garlic

I love everything about garlic, from plot to plate. — Heather Wolfe

I’m pretty sure that I would have been among the Israelites recorded in Numbers 11:5 who, as they wandered in the desert, were longing for the garlic they had in Egypt. I love everything about garlic from plot to plate.

There is no question that garlic is my favorite crop to grow. Nothing bothers garlic in the garden! In 15 years of planting garlic, I have never experienced crop failure, though periods of too little or too much rain (which is increasing in our climate-changed world) at times have stunted size. Each year, garlic exponentially divides creating an amazing return on investment.

My garlic patch began with a single head of garlic purchased at a local farmer’s market. (I had been advised not to plant grocery store garlic, a softneck variety that comes from California with much milder winters than we have in Vermont.) That first head of local hardneck garlic (hardy for colder climates) had four cloves. Each of those four cloves grew four heads of four cloves each for a total of 16 cloves in year two. I didn’t eat any of that first harvest. Digging, dividing and replanting all 16 cloves produced 64 cloves in year three.

Planting all of those resulted in a yield of 256 cloves the following year, the amount our garlic-loving family of five needs to plant annually to supply just over 1,000 cloves we need to feed ourselves, including enough to save for replanting and some to share. I think acts of love and kindness must also multiply in similar exponential ways that aren’t always as visible to us.

Over time, when replanted year after year in a particular geography, garlic takes on terroir, a culinary term meaning ‘the taste of place.’ Terroir, a French word for soil or land, is most often used in the food world when describing how wine or cheese is influenced by location. Garlic will reflect the soil it is grown in. The garlic I grow is unique in all the world, having 15 years of being shaped by this environment here.

What I immerse myself in shapes me. This past year I have immersed myself in seminary, just this month graduating from the Center for Wild Spirituality’s Seminary of the Wild Earth eco-ministry program.

The primary spiritual practice I’ve developed over the course of this year has been intentional time on the land, investing in relationships with place and engaging with the diversity of beings in creation that I encounter. Like the garlic, I find myself being transformed over time with repeated exposure to the elements around me that also become integrated within me as I absorb my surroundings. Like many people, I experience the sacred most powerfully in nature. I see God in creation. As one of my professors stated, “Wild spirituality is our deepest, oldest, most universal form of spirituality.” It grows up from the ground and has local expression, like the garlic that I love.

Photo by Heather Wolfe.
Roast garlic cloves in the oven with olive oil. You can add the roasted gloves to mashed potatoes or hummus. — Heather Wolfe.

Roasted Garlic

Roasting transforms garlic’s pungent flavor into caramelized cloves that are sweet, soft and spreadable. Delicious as is or added to endless recipes such as mashed potatoes or hummus.

Ingredients
1 whole head/bulb of garlic
olive oil
salt

Instructions
1. Preheat the oven to 400 F.
2. Trim ¼-inch off the top of the unpeeled garlic bulb to expose each clove.
3. Place garlic on a piece of tin foil, cut side up. Drizzle with a little olive oil and sprinkle with a pinch of salt. Then wrap the garlic up in the foil. (If you’d like you can then set the wrapped garlic head in a muffin tin or a ceramic baking dish to help keep it upright during baking.)
5. Bake for 40-60 minutes until softened and beginning to brown. When cool enough to touch,   you can simply squeeze the cloves out from their papery package.

 

Heather Wolfe

Heather Wolfe is deeply rooted in Vermont, USA, is in the Mennonite faith tradition and is part of a family Read More

Sign up to our newsletter for important updates and news!