The cool, wet spring has delayed local garlic production for a few weeks, but the wait is finally over. At the Kingfield Farmers Market on Sunday, Deanna Stanchfield and Scott Jentink of Swede Lake Farms in Watertown, Minn., were featuring several large bowls of sweetly pungent garlic ($1 to $2.50 per bulb). The couple has been cultivating more than a dozen heirloom varieties of this prized member of the lily family for the past four years, and that impressive assortment means that there are small and large bulbs that range from mild to hot flavors, a huge improvement over the usual one-size-fits-all selection at the supermarket. "The more I learn about it, the more I want to grow it," said Jentink. "It's a treasure, in a way, because you never know what you're going to find when you dig it up. Just about everything else grows above ground, so you can see what it is, but with garlic, you dig and you go, 'Wow.'" He laughed. "I'm easily amused, I guess." Next up: Stanchfield and Jentink will be harvesting 11 varieties of edamame.
RICK NELSON
Swede Lake Farms sells at the Kingfield Farmers Market, 43rd St. and Nicollet Av. S., Minneapolis, 9 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Sundays, kingfield.org; also at the Mill City Farmers Market, Chicago Av. and S. 2nd St., Minneapolis, 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturdays, millcityfarmersmarket.org.
