Garlicky Goodness in Verona

Sep 09, 2010

FFM treasurer Debbie Harris, Kim Perry of Local Family Farms, Paul Pospisil present David and Miguel Hahn of Forest Farm with the Champion Grower Award for 2010

Garlic lovers came out in droves to the 4th Annual Verona Lions' Garlic Festival at the Saturday farmers’ market in Verona.

John McDougall, president of the Verona Lions, was proud to say that the event is “getting bigger and better every year.” It was so big in fact that most of the local vendors sold out before the day ended.

A total of 50 vendors, 30 from the regular Saturday market and 20 garlic and garden-oriented vendors participated. Generous funding was provided this year from the Frontenac Community Futures Development Corporation and was spent on community advertising, which McDougall said helped to draw a crowd close to double the size of last year’s and which he estimated to be roughly 3000 visitors.

The other festival sponsors included the National Farmer's Union Local 316, Local Family Farms in Verona, and the Frontenac Farmers’ Market.

Paul Pospisil, local garlic guru and editor of The Garlic News, the one and only Canadian quarterly solely devoted to garlic, also had a booth again this year. As founder of the Eastern Ontario Garlic Awards (EOGA), which he began as a means of providing growers with more varieties and improving the quality of their garlic, Pospisil knows a thing or two about garlic. In Maberly he has a research trial plot where he tests out different varieties. He grows them for three years and if they are successful, sells them as seeds to other commercial growers.

At 1pm Pospisil presented the awards. David and Miguel Hahn of Forest Farm near Westport won best overall Champion Grower for 2010 and Brent and Carolyn Smith of Croydon View Farm of Roblin took second place overall and became this year’s Reserve Champions.

Regarding the challenges posed to garlic growers this year, Pospisil said, “This year garlic like many things was affected by a bad weather year. A warm fall, mild winter with low snow cover followed by an extremely early spring meant that garlic came up on March 15 instead of early April this year.” The hard freeze on May 10 and 11 drastically affected some growers and some lost as much as 90% of their crop.

Pospisil says that the popularity of local garlic is growing as part of the “buy local” movement. “Right now garlic is the leading edge of the buy local movement right across Canada,” he said.

Thanks to our local growers many of us can now enjoy the health and good taste that can be found in every juicy local clove.