It's Sweet Smell Of Success For Okanogan Garlic Grower

OKANOGAN - If you're like most Americans, you probably think all garlic is pretty much the same. But as Ron Engeland eagerly attests: "Nothing could be further from the truth."

He has more than 250 strains hanging on his wall to prove it.

Engeland, described by U.S. Department of Agriculture horticulturist Richard Hannan as this country's "supreme garlic aficionado," is raising the right crop at the right time. Gourmet restaurants are clamoring for more flavorful garlic just as medical researchers are confirming the plant's health benefits.

Working out of his Filaree Farm headquarters - a dimly lit wooden warehouse where bouquets of dried statice blossoms hang from the ceiling and the fragrance of garlic and apples saturates the air - Engeland markets 120 strains of garlic through an annual catalog, occasional articles and word of mouth.

"Our prices start at $7 a pound and work their way down, depending on how much you buy," he says. "Catalogs go out in January. By June, we're already selling out of stuff and the garlic isn't even out of the ground yet."

Not bad for a late-blooming farmer who was warned he couldn't grow garlic in north-central Washington.

Engeland arrived in the Okanogan Valley 15 years ago and set out to raise apples organically. Soon though, he began experimenting with garlic.

"We were looking for an alternative crop that was light in weight but high in value so we could ship it," he recalls. "We also

wanted something that large-scale farmers couldn't grow, and organic garlic doesn't lend itself to mechanization."

At first, Engeland was hindered by a lack of information about hardneck garlics, the half-wild varieties that thrive in regions with cold winters.

"They still aren't considered a major food crop," he says, "so the big guys have never paid much attention to them."

Americans are more familiar with softneck garlics, which are easier to grow and store longer. The most common variety is silverskin, which prefers the milder climates of California, Texas and Mexico and is sold in supermarkets or processed into powder.

Elsewhere in the world, though, hardneck garlics are appreciated for their zesty flavor. Seeing opportunity for a specialty crop, Engeland gathered cloves from around the globe and tested their suitability to Northwest conditions. In 1988, he began a garlic classification program.

Pullman-based horticulturist Hannan, who oversees a collection of 22,000 plant strains including 180 garlics, praises Engeland's grass-roots effort.

"Not everybody agrees with his taxonomy, but he's gone about it right," Hannan says.

According to Engeland, garlic can be divided into four basic types, "which not only look different and grow different, but they store different, taste different and have different uses."

To describe a particular garlic's taste, "you have to make sweeping generalities that get you in trouble," he says. "You can plant the same garlic in different soils a mile apart and get very different tastes."

Having said that, Engeland offers these observations:

"I think the rocamboles are the overall most flavorful garlics, raw or cooked. Artichokes tend to be good garlics raw, but are not as good when cooked.

"Silverskins grown in northern climates are pretty good cooked, but kind of average raw. The continentals have not been widely tested but they shape up pretty much like the rocambole. They have a tendency to be a little hotter though."

The guru of garlic isn't much appreciated at home. "We've had an impossible time selling hardneck garlic to Northwest restaurants, stores and brokers," he says.

"They don't understand that this is different, that it has better flavor, that it's worth more money. But if you take it to San Francisco, people's eyes bug out and they say, `My God, where did you get that?' They love it."