The Magic of Garlic

By Kelly Black

A little folly and a whole lot of garlic.

Christmas 2009 found Ralph Edwards, of Folly Farm in Cove, holding a magnificent head of Thai Fire garlic. It was a gift from a friend.

The taste was incredible.

The ground had not yet frozen; Ralph, a horticulturist by training, planted 5 cloves.

“Those five cloves gave me these great big, beautiful heads of garlic,” said Ralph. “I said, ‘Wow, that was easy. Let’s do that again!’”

That was the beginning of the end: this fall the garlic-growing duo harvested 1,096 cloves.

“We grew eight varieties,” said Cindy.

What started as a kitchen garden has grown into a gourmet garlic farm with a dream of establishing a local seed bank for heirloom vegetables.

An architect by trade, Ralph talks about another era where wealthy Lords built huge extravagant buildings—decked out with ornamentation—that did not have an intended purpose.

“Is it going to be a library? Is it going to be a bank? No. It was something he build for his own pleasure and basically had no function whatsoever,” said Ralph.

So people started calling those buildings, “follies,” and the saying was born, “It is his own folly.”

Not built for a purpose, just for pleasure.

One of Ralph’s professors used to say, “Design without purpose is just folly.”

In 2006, Ralph and Cindy were sitting in what is now the La Grande Inn. In front of them lay a real estate contract to buy one acre in picturesque Cove, Oregon.

“We were seven hundred miles from where we both grew up,” said Cindy.

Ralph had doubts, he remembers thinking, “We don’t really know anyone here except a few relatives.”

A Fat Tire Beer commercial on TV caught their eye. The commercial had no words, just music and footage of a guy out riding a bicycle he restored following a country road. Text flashed on the screen: “Follow your folly. Ours is beer.”

Ralph and Cindy signed the papers. Folly Farm was born.

“There is like 1,000 different kinds of garlic,” said Ralph as late afternoon light pours through the bank of windows into the Edwards kitchen.

Ralph shows me a clove of Uzbek Turban garlic. The skin is like aged linen paper splattered with a rich purple wash. I am told Uzbek Turban resembles ancient garlic first discovered in the Caucasus Mountains between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea and then bartered along the silk and spice trading routes.

Garlic is highly adaptive. Over time it genetically mutates to accommodate environmental conditions such as soil fertility, rain fall, severity of winter and temperatures

“This is truly a mutation in the ground,” said Ralph.

I begin to think about other mutants—Wolverine and the X-men—the Thai Fire garlic has a sexy new appeal.

“If he [Ralph] could live to be as old as Methuselah,” adds Cindy, referring to the biblical character that lived to be 969 years old, “then that Thai Fire could become Cove-Fire.”

Mutants or not, the garlic is immensely popular.

The Edwards call their garlic farm a self-supporting hobby. At first the Edwards offered a U-pick.

“We’ll get the neighbors to support our ‘seed habit’,” laughed Cindy.

Now Folly Farm sells garlic at the farmer’s market in Cove and at other local festivals. Each garlic variety has a written descriptor akin to wine tasting.

Thai Purple: Produces a delicate tingle on the tongue when tasted raw—great roasted.

At the markets, the Edwards offer tastings both raw and roasted.

“I just love being able to be there with people that are tasting,” said Ralph. “They go wow, what a transformation to go from something that is so hot I can hardly put it in my mouth to something so sweet and savory that…mmmm…I just want to get in a hot tub with it.”

Garlic cloves are usually planted toward the end of October. The ground soon freezes over, but the soil below is 55 degrees and the roots keep growing all winter, developing a huge root mass with hair thin roots running out in all directions. These fine hairs deep in the soil pull up trace minerals. Trace minerals add the to famed medicinal qualities of garlic.

“That is why garlic is such a magical thing,” said Cindy.

Some customers buy garlic for purely medicinal purposes. Recently a customer bought one half pound of garlic to make a poultice for a wound. Others have used the juice for bee stings or worming goats.

“If you had a little good garlic with your food on a regular basis, you’d know you were getting all the trace elements you need,” said Ralph.

The Edwards—self-diagnosed foodies—have a few favorite garlic recipes.

Cindy likes “40 Clove Chicken” out of a cookbook called “Garlic, Garlic, Garlic” by Linda Griffith.

Ralph talks of chowder made of vegetables, dark beer—like a Black Butte porter—and garlic.

Another favorite is simply roasting on the BBQ a whole chicken sprinkled with a little coriander, salt, pepper and white wine, sitting on a bed of sliced onions, with garlic tucked under the skin and in the cavity. 

Ralph loves roasted garlic with a glass of wine as an appetizer before dinner.

“Just cooked like candy,” said Ralph.

Out of the blue Cindy assures me, “I do not put garlic in my oatmeal.”

We laugh.

Cindy is passionate about their work to develop a seed bank of heirloom vegetables.

“The overall goal is to develop a secure seed source of non-GMO seeds that grow here locally,” said Cindy. “Just like garlic, things adapt locally over time.”

Ralph points to the large heirloom tomatoes sitting on the wooden table in the kitchen. They are various shades of red, one is even purple.

“People grow the same tomato grandpa grew,” said Ralph. “They’ve saved seeds religiously.”

The Edwards hope to form partnerships to preserve heirloom seed and potentially co-op growing garlic to develop a bigger marketing scheme.

“To be able to barter with your friends and neighbors for the good food, that is where it is at,” said Ralph.