Garlic Giveaway

I've given away several hundred bulbs of garlic this fall, to community gardens in the Toronto Area. Also got several dozen bulbs from garlic farmers at the garlic festival, which were given away.

Garlic Breath Contest Winners Announced

The contest measured contestants for the highest parts per billion of CH3SH (Methanethiol), as measured by the Oral Chroma machine generously donated by Advanced Sensor in Markham, was announced today.
The 1st Place winner of the garlic breath contest is Talla Roushan, who won a $200 gift certificate at the Chefs' House Restaurant in Toronto, generously provided by the Chefs' House.

The contest was officiated by the Ontario Science Centre. Talla had a reading of 20.06 parts per billion.When she got home she made her boyfriend eat garlic too!

The Garlic Breath Super Hero



Anthony Morgan from the Ontario Science Centre



2nd Annual Toronto Garlic Festival

Despite the weather the festival was a great success, with about 2,500 garlic lovers visiting from across the GTA and southern Ontario.

Chef Luis Valenzuela





Garlic Tuna Sashimi





Garlic Farmer Simon de Boer

Tita Flips

Garlic Breath Super Hero

Garlic Farmer Warren Ham

Alchemy Pickle Co and 13 Cloves Garlic

Fusia Dog

Gushi Toronto

Ont Science Centre

The BaconWich





Garlic Chocolate Brownies on Breakfast Television

They were pleasantly surprised.

Don't Stink and Drive

This campaign is running on half of all downtown Toronto streetcars in the four weeks prior to the garlic festival. The idea is to encourage festival visitors to take the free shuttle to the festival. The advert sponsors are Steam Whistle and Tonic Magazine.

Garlic Powder at Bloor Cinema

Toronto Garlic sponsored Garlic Powder is now available at the Bloor Cinema. Our co-sponsor is Augusts Harvest. Warren Ham from Augusts Harvest supplied the garlic powder.

A garlic elf prepping the garlic for hanging

Bulbil Jewellry

Courtney at Whole Circle Farm has plans to create a line of jewellry made with garlic bulbils.

At the Iron Chef Competition the "Secret Ingredient" is...

Garlic! -- at the Harbourfront Iron chef-off, where I talked about the virtues of Ontario garlic while the chefs prepared their dishes. Most of the garlic I brought for the display was pilfered by the contest judges!

This Years' Garlic Recipe Brochure Is Fresh From The Printer

I especially like the recipe "To Dress Eggs with Garlic," from Fort York. The brochure will be distributed to 100 farmers' markets in the GTA and southern Ontario, with help from the Greenbelt Farmers Market Alliance. The other recipe brochure sponsors this year are The Chefs' House and The Big Carrot.

Grilled Cheese on a Wintry Day

Gave away grilled cheese sandwiches at Wychwood Farmers' Market.

Terra Madre Day at Toronto Harbourfront

There were about 40 chefs and farmers and value-add vendors showing off their Ontario sourced food products for the one day event. I gave away samples of roast garlic puree on toasted bread.  They loved it.

Good timing with the TTC street car behind me.

Time-motion studies in the garden

A neglected aspect of farming, in my opinion, is studying how to do repetitive tasks in the most efficient way. For example, finding how to shave a half second off a one and a half second movement that's repeated thousands of times in the course of a morning task would be helpful. Trickier still is getting people to share what they learn, and for others to adopt the improvement.

Between Whole Circle Farm and myself we've planted 20,000 garlic cloves in the last ten days (10,000 each). We clocked our rate (# of cloves per person hour), and found that it ranged from 300 cloves per hour, to 500, and as high as 1,000 cloves planted per person per hour.

In a recent garlic planting competition in the back garden Andrew aka "Pinchy"
hand-carved a wooden stake for his planting implement
(above right).

While Heather and myself threw down garlic in the assigned rows, Yana, Pinchy and Abhi braced themselves at the starting line. Pinchy started out strong, wielding his wooden stake with masterly strokes. He maintained the lead for the first 2/3rd of the 420' bed. But the effort of stabbing the soil to plant each clove tired him out, and by the end Yana pulled ahead, with her flat trowel. She finished ahead of Pinchy and Abhi with a comfortable margin, convincing the panel of judges that her planting modality is worthy of further study.










Below - Abhi and I working on another garlic bed.