Marlborough grown garlic

Marlborough offers ideal growing conditions for garlic. Garlic needs a winning combination of chilling time (a good frost doesn’t hurt) and hot dry sun. Geographically, garlic growers in the far north often battle against humidity, whilst further south it's colder and the plants don't get the necessary sunshine hours.

Just as you would do when growing garlic in your own vegetable patch, garlic cloves are traditionally planted on the shortest day of the year, in June. Then, in between feeding and watering, it's a waiting game for the mature crop to be harvested on the longest day of the year.

Growing garlic in huge quantities takes much planning. The first activity in growing garlic is ground preparation so the soil and PH levels are just right. If White Rot or nematodes (microscopic worms that feed on bacteria and fungi) are found they create havoc in allium crops and render the ground useless for repeat growing seasons. If the soil is infected the search starts for fresh paddocks and each season all crop locations are also inspected to ensure Onion Smut is not present.

We save Garlico fresh garlic bulbs to use as our next season seed. On the day of planting the bulbs are cracked by machine into individual cloves. The cloves are machine sown into the ground.

Garlic seed must be nurtured well during its early stage of growth. Ultimate growing conditions would be a frosty winter for cold earth that promotes a thick growth of 'paper' around each bulb, regular rainfall or irrigation to promote growth of the bulb and then lots of heat in the final stages to promote size. The bulb rapidly fills out during the last few weeks of the growing period in December, and can double in size within a matter of weeks.

Disease free soil, high daylight hours, water and food (in particular, nitrogen) are all required for healthy green tops free of rust and bulbs free of pest, disease and rot.

Garlic harvesting is carried out through January, all mechanically lifted, topped and binned for drying. Green weight yields are generally double that of an air dried product.

Air drying is a system of forcing warm air through the bins of field garlic to cure the product. This also helps to develop the strong garlic flavour. Garlic straight from the ground is much milder in taste.

Garlic can keep for seven to eight months in cool, dry storage. This allows Garlico to continue to provide consistently great product to supermarkets and customers nationwide.

New Zealand grown garlic must adhere to strict NZGAP (industry standard) protocols, where spray and fertiliser usage records must be disclosed and recorded. The same unfortunately can't be said for imported garlic.

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