Do you want to learn more about gardening methods? Check out our information pages.
At Grey Duck Gardens we believe that everyone should be able to feed themselves and their families. We donate 2% of our seed profits to Heifer International, an organization that helps people in the USA and around the world become self sufficient.
Garlic Growers Page
The taste that inspires passion
Growers Discount: Over 25 lbs receives a grower's discount: we are a small farm and have limited amounts of each variety so to avoid disappointment order early. Please contact Jane at greyduck@greyduckgarlic.com or (509) 595-3288 about orders larger than 25 pounds so we can personally verify that we have the varieties in the amounts you need.
25-49 lbs: $1.00 discount per pound
$16.00 per lb medium bulbs
$19.00 per lb large bulbs
50-99 lbs $2.00 discount per pound
$15.00 per lb medium bulbs
$18.00 per lb large bulbs
100 lbs and over $3.00 discount per pound
$14.00 per lb medium bulbs
$17.00 per lb large bulbs
Grower's Prices
For only $2.00 extra per pound we will clove AND sort your garlic. You will receive presorted large or medium cloves ready to put in the ground.
Why are presorted cloves good deal?
1) You will receive only planting size cloves that will produce large garlic (either medium or large cloves).
2) You will not have to clove and sort the garlic which will save you time and the cost of labor.
3) You will save money since there will be zero waste. Garlic bulbs usually have about 5-11% waste depending on the variety plus you will always have some cloves that are too small to plant. Also, shipping is less on cloves since more can fit into a box.
4) Uniform cloves will give you a more uniform crop which is important if you are reselling your crop.
When you buy presorted cloves they are ready to put in the ground the day they arrive (so make sure to specify when you will be planting).
Why Should You Buy Grey Duck Seed Garlic?
Why should you buy seed garlic when you could just multiply and plant our own garlic? Certainly
this is a viable choice and a few of our customers do that. However, most growers choose to buy their seed garlic from us since it
actually saves them money.
Why buying Grey Duck seed garlic makes economic sense:
1) Saving garlic to plant means less garlic to sell:
Here’s
an example of how to calculate how much garlic to save for seed:
We usually save around 20% of our garlic to plant.
Since Susan insists
that we only plant the big cloves, we have to clove 2 to 3 times more garlic than we plant to sort out only the large cloves.
To obtain 100 pounds of seed garlic, we clove 200-300 pounds of garlic (this amount varies depending on variety, size of garlic and
how picky you are about the size of your planting cloves).
If you sold 200 lbs garlic to a restaurant for $12/pound we would
make $2,400.
Buying 100 lbs of presorted medium seed cloves would cost $1,600 or presorted large cloves would cost $1,900.
2) Growing
organic garlic takes land, fertilizer and labor:
It takes us about 600 sq ft to plant 50 pounds of garlic* (we plant in 4 x 50 ft
beds of approximately 600 cloves so this is 3 large beds)
For 600 square ft it takes us: (all times are rough estimations for one
person using Grey Duck Garlic past records; you may need more or less time):
Rotor tilling: 10 minutes with tractor, 1.5-2 hours hand
tiller
Cloving bulbs: 6-8 hours
Planting: 4-7 hours
Mulching time: 1 hour
Weeding time: 10-15 hours
Harvest time: 4-7 hours
Cleaning
and curing labor: 3-4 hours
Cost of labor: 28-44 hours labor @ 15/hr $420-$660
This does not include:
Cost of mulch:
Cost of fertilizer:
Storage space:
Loss of profit for alternative crops in that space:
Loss of time you may want to spend elsewhere:
* Plan on a 400-600%
increase of your planting stock (i.e., if you plant 10 lbs of garlic you will usually get a 40-60 lbs of garlic bulbs at harvest.
Your yield will depend on growing conditions and weather. To grow 200 extra pounds of garlic to sort for 100 pounds of large seed
cloves you will need to plant an extra 50 lbs of garlic.
Presorted Cloves