Garlic Again

New Varieties

New, beautiful variety of garlic to try - Nootka Rose.

Last year, I went to the Southwest Washington Annual Garlic Fest looking for garlic seed. This year, we went back because my chickens ate the entire harvest.

I wasn’t actually planning to attend this year. After all, the push toward self-sufficiency drives so many of my decisions. The whole point was to grow enough garlic that I wouldn't have to buy seed garlic again.

However, farming rarely seems to follow the best-laid plans.

We were there when the gates opened and started a strategic sweep looking for one vendor in particular. One of the best parts of farming is the community it brings. We love the story, people, and produce behind Sacred Organics Farm from Oregon, and after the year we had with garlic, finding them was at the top of our list.

At the end of the day, despite feeling a little crabby that morning about having to buy another batch of garlic, I was so excited to get to talk with them again.

And maybe that is part of what makes farming so strange.

You can be frustrated by the work and still love the work. You can be disappointed by the outcome and still want to try again. You can walk into a festival thinking, I really shouldn't have to be doing this again, and walk out carrying bags of garlic and feeling genuinely excited about what comes next.

Then, on the way home, I realized there is a part of me that broke a few years ago that is healing.

After I lost my harvest and my flocks of birds, I took a year off farming. I let the failure of that year become a defining moment, and I tried to walk away.

For a while, it was easier to believe that maybe I simply wasn't capable of doing this. Maybe I had taken on too much. Maybe I wasn't cut out for farming. Maybe the losses were evidence that I shouldn't keep trying. This year, I was mad at my chickens for sure. I was crabby about having to buy another batch of seed garlic. The garlic wasn't the only crop the chickens managed to destroy, either.

But it didn't break my resolve. It didn't feel like a final blow.

It felt like a problem. A really frustrating, expensive, chicken-shaped problem, but a problem that could be solved.

And there is a profound difference between those two things.

A few years ago, failure made me question whether I belonged here at all. This year, it made me question my fencing.

It made me question my animal management practices. It made me rethink how I am going to design the garden around livestock. It made me angry, and it made me start making a better plan.

But it didn't make me question my skill or my ability.

That feels like progress.

Maybe self-sufficiency was never really going to mean that I could grow everything I needed, perfectly, without ever buying anything again.

Maybe it means something a little different.

Maybe it means learning how to start over.

Maybe it means knowing how to take a failure apart, figure out what went wrong, and try again without letting that failure become a definition of who you are.

So, this year, I bought more garlic. I brought it home. And soon, I will put it back into the ground.

But without chickens in the garden this time.