Love Poem to Garlic by Mong-lan
stinking rose
the heady scent of you
tangy spicy
most underrated
year-round orb
bulbous root incandescent moon
Aaah… garlic. Are you one who triples the amount in every recipe, dices it into olive oil to smear on fresh bread and rubs it on your child’s foot to heal a cough? The smell of a sauté, the pungency of your pesto, and relative ease of growing make it ideal for the kitchen gardener.
If you are a longtime market patron you will remember Scott’s Garden, begun 27 years ago by Virgil Scott at the Taft Hill and 54G location. Last summer, Justin and Alisha Koehn signed on to
help Virgil and what a crash course! Virgil turned the garden over to them that same year. Garlic is their “number one thing” with Scotty’s Red the feature in July. “It’s early ripening and one of the best flavors,” shares Justin as a customer arrives exclaiming, “Wow, it looks beautiful!”Justin and Alisha both have full-time jobs outside of the farm, so they appreciate the calm between the storm of garlic’s fall planting and the summer harvest. Upcoming varieties feature: Bavarian Purple, Chestnut Red, Polish Gin and lots of softneck, or white, garlics which become beautiful braids for winter storage. In addition to garlic, on the 1.5 acre farm you’ll find onions, beets, carrots, parsnips, turnips and heirloom tomatoes. In fact, almost all the vegetables they grow are heirloom. Justin says they’ve been lucky so far this year with a nice Spring, but looking forward they plan to focus even more on the “stinking rose” and starting up with bees.
Years ago at a garlic festival I sampled garlic ice cream; sweetened with honey could make it a most intriguing local flavor!
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