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I've been growing certified organic seed garlic in McArthur, California for going on eight years now and I'll tell you something most farm blogs won't say. Year after year we do a little better but we're also only one fatal mistake away from failure. That's not...
We didn't name this place Basaltic Farms to sound clever. We named it after the ground we stand on. When Dad closed escrow on the land up in McArthur a year to the day after the Tubbs fire took everything we owned, the soil report came back describing a volcanic flood...
Introduction When we first started scaling up our garlic operation at Basaltic Farms, one of the most stressful parts was figuring out how to order seed garlic in bulk. It's one thing to order a few pounds for a garden, but when you're talking about hundreds or...
Introduction If you're thinking about commercial garlic farming or you're already growing and trying to figure out which varieties are actually worth your time and acreage, this is the post I wish someone had written for me about five years ago. Because I made the...
Garlic Varieties and Cloves per Bulb Key Takeaways Garlic is divided into two main groups (hardneck and softneck) with nine recognized subgroups, each with distinct flavor, storage, and growing characteristics. Clove counts per bulb range from 4–7 (Porcelain) to 15–24...
How to Plant Garlic The purpose of these garlic growing instructions is to answer questions we hear all the time about how to plant your garlic and what you should do once you receive your garlic from us. Below are our recommendations for what to do once you get your...
Choosing the Right Garlic Seed Size Learning how to grow garlic starts with selecting the best organic seeds, and size plays a crucial role in this process. At Basaltic Garlic Farm, we've observed that larger seeds often lead to larger bulbs, guiding our approach to...
Key Insights Certified organic is a legal standard, not a marketing claim. It means a licensed inspector verified your operation annually — not just that you avoid synthetic inputs. The verification gap is the whole issue. "Naturally grown," "chemical free," and "no...
Key Takeaways Commercial garlic farming can net $5,000-$40,000 per acre — but only when the right market channel is matched to the right scale. Seed garlic buyers pay $10-$25/lb, which is 5-10x what wholesalers offer. Seed garlic is the biggest first-year cost —...
Introduction One of the questions I get asked all the time is "how much garlic should I plant?" And honestly, when I first started farming, I had absolutely no idea how to answer that question for myself. I made so many mistakes those first few years trying to figure...
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