The Flavour Maker
What are you willing to wait in line for after driving 90 minutes just to get there? Concert tickets? A door crasher sale? Garlic? Not garlic? What if it were the best variety of garlic you’d ever tasted, and the only place you could get it was from a roadside stand in the middle of Chilliwack farm fields?
Whether or not you’d go to these extremes for your garlic fix, plenty of Lower Mainland folks do when Chilliwack Garlic Farm updates its social media, announcing that today’s the day. If you’re used to grabbing a small white bulb of garlic from the grocery store for less than a dollar, this might seem bonkers, but those in the know quickly become committed to the hearty pink heft of artisanal garlic, with bulbs that fill your hand like a hug — and the farmers who specialize in bringing the flavour.
Jordan Sturdy knows this better than most independent farmers in B.C. He’s been producing artisanal garlic since the early ’90s, when he and his wife Trish started North Arm Farm, now a beloved Pemberton landmark. Garlic was on the menu — and in the ground — from the beginning. Three decades later, “Sturdy’s” (as locals call the farm) might be better known for its u-pick berries and gourmet baked goods from the farm shop, but garlic is still a staple in its crop roster.
North Arm Farm is a family business, where Jordan, who is also a member of Parliament, and Trish’s now grown children work alongside their parents. Community involvement has always been a priority for the Sturdys, which is why they invite farm visitors to pick their own berries, enjoy farm-prepared food or savour some gelato. And if their recent zoning application is approved, they’ll also be expanding their hosting capacity to include a brewery — with space for visitors to enjoy a frosty brew or two on the farm.
Aside from that proposed expansion, these days the Sturdys are committed to streamlining. Daughter Emma manages the farm with a focus on simplifying operations. The early days of exploratory diversification are past and the Sturdys have learned what grows well in their soil, along with what their customers want and need, so they’ve focused garlic production on just two hardneck varieties: Porcelain and Red Russian.
Porcelain is kissing cousin to Music, the first garlic variety the Sturdys planted at North Arm Farm. They purchased 300 pounds of seed garlic from Ontario legend Al Music, one of Canada’s founding artisanal garlic farmers. It served the Sturdys well, providing a fiery bite that contrasted dramatically with the tame grocery store garlic familiar to most home cooks at the time.
Although Music put North Arm Farm on the local garlic lovers’ map, by the time the Sturdys needed to replenish stock, they’d settled on Porcelain and Red Russian as the biggest, stickiest, tastiest varieties to flourish in their soil. These bulbs sell well and tend to remain healthy, which is crucial for the business since garlic is an important source of income.
Keeping restaurants garlic-stocked
Red Russian is now a well-known favourite on the farmers’ market scene, which is exactly why Meegan and Yvon-Jean Nicod initially decided to specialize in different varieties when they started Chilliwack Garlic Farm a few years ago. One of these unique varieties is Cleopatra, which Yvon loves because it grows large, tastes spicy, boasts many layers and, if dried and stored well, can stay good for up to 12 months — an incredible feat for garlic.
Yvon grew up in France, where he trained at university to specialize in wine — everything from tasting to vineyard management. Eventually, he became a food and wine critic in Paris, but after moving to Canada, he began to miss working outdoors and yearned to get his hands back in the soil.
He became inspired by neighbour Doug Lowe, the now-retired proprietor of legendary Greendale Herb and Vine. Lowe was a fixture on the Lower Mainland farmers’ market scene, renowned for his honey, tomatoes, cucumbers and garlic. As a former high school teacher, Lowe was the perfect mentor for Yvon, who jumped at the chance to learn garlic farming from an established expert in cultivating both delicious produce and customer relationships.
But unlike Lowe, the Nicods don’t spend several days each week on the road selling at farmers’ markets. Instead, they supply local restaurants and the dedicated foodies who make the trek from all over the Lower Mainland — some from as far away as West Vancouver — to Chilliwack Garlic Farm’s roadside stand. This is where Yvon yearns to spend more of his time; he loves chatting about recipes and zero-waste cooking with the garlic lovers who comprise the Nicods’ customers. Their goal is to grow the business in proportion to what they can sell from the stand.
And that’s a lot: the Nicods produced 140,000 pounds of garlic last year on less than an acre of land. They do everything by hand — they don’t even use a tractor — and they have day jobs managing the Chilliwack A&W restaurants. And three young boys to raise.
Yvon is the face of the farm, posing cheerfully for photos on the moped he rides around town to deliver fresh garlic. The Chilliwack Garlic Farm social media channels make garlic farming look almost as glamorous as fashion design, but there’s nothing the Nicods don’t know about digging deep into their seemingly endless work ethic to get their hands dirty in the fields. They’re the first to set the record straight about how little glamour garlic farmers experience.
“It’s really labour intensive because garlic farming is all hand work,” Yvon explains. “Sometimes we’re out here with headlamps into the night. I usually stop when I hear the coyotes.”
Busy as they are, the two take time for extra steps they feel are important, such as adhering to zero-waste principles whenever possible. That’s one of the reasons they grow and love Wild Violet garlic.
“It’s an early Spring variety, and you can use the whole plant,” Yvon says. “It’s more like a green onion in that sense. We sell the whole plant.” This year they sold out of all 150 pounds of Wild Violet in fewer than two weeks.
“And we sold all our scapes this year, too,” Yvon reports. “But if we hadn’t, I would have given them away to food charities. I hate waste. When we have small bulbs, we just sell them as pickling garlic. Our customers love it.”
Despite the popularity of these unique varieties, the Nicods have finally given in to the garlic peer pressure: they now grow and sell Red Russian, because “everybody wants it” — partly because of its large bulbs.
Obsessed with the stinking rose
It’s clear that with garlic, bigger really is better. Big bulbs and cloves for customers mean big lineups and sales for farmers. Everyone wins. So it’s understandable that B.C. garlic farmers are somewhat obsessed with the size of their bulbs.
Another reason for this obsession is that with the artisanal “hardneck” garlic varieties that flourish in B.C.’s soil and climate, large bulbs mean flavour. Pro tip: Don’t let the mildness of ginormous “elephant garlic” bulbs confuse you here. “Elephant garlic” isn’t garlic at all (it’s actually a type of leek). And, like most of the garlic you’ll find for sale in your nearby grocery store, it’s usually imported from China. Roughly three-quarters of worldwide garlic production happens in China, with almost 70 per cent of the garlic for sale in Canada being imported from China.
No wonder Kip Cantrell of Thistle Farm admits that, “There’s a bit of pride involved, if I’m being honest,” when describing the size and quality of bulbs he and his wife, Michele, are pulling from the ground on their recently cultivated Wynndel property. They’ve only harvested four crops from their land so far, but the numbers are good.
They grow Asian Tempest and Deep Purple for the early spring harvest, along with other specialty varieties including Georgian Fire and Bogatyr. But their main harvests of large garlic come from the now-familiar fan favourites Russian Red and Red Russian. (Yes, these really are two different varieties.) For one thing, Russian Red is a rocambole, which means it’s cold hardy and requires cold temperatures to grow. As well, it’s “important to note that Russian Red is from the Standard Purple Stripe family and is different from Red Russian, which is from the Marbled Purple Stripe family.”
The Cantrells may be new to garlic and to farm ownership, but they boast impressive experience in the agriculture sector. The couple met while travelling in the Yukon and spent the next 15 years on the road together. Their schedule was set by the cycle of agricultural work, with off-season winters spent travelling extensively overseas. During the tree fruit growing seasons, they rotated through crops and locations— mostly in Canada but sometimes in far-flung destinations such as Australia and New Zealand.
When they were ready to “put down roots” and start their family, they chose to settle in the Creston Valley. This green haven was one of their favourite places; it was also one of the last arable locations in B.C., where agricultural land was relatively affordable. Now, however, those days are long gone.
One of the reasons for those lower land prices was that the land was considered marginal and best suited to hay production. But that didn’t put off the Cantrells, who purchased their first half-acre of open hay field in 2016, followed by another three-and-a-halfacre parcel in 2022; they knew they could increase productivity and reduce weed growth naturally by developing a complex crop rotation and cover-cropping system.
Now that they’ve figured out what works on their land, they’re able to specialize in garlic as a profitable crop they can grow organically, with respect for their land and soil. But just because they’ve figured out what works doesn’t mean it’s easy.
“People think garlic is easier to grow than it actually is,” Kip says. “But it’s a high value crop because it’s so much work — it’s all hand labour and there’s tons to learn. There are so many specific rules and cultural practices involved in growing really nice garlic. It’s easy to grow small garlic. It’s hard to grow big, beautiful garlic. What makes our garlic beautiful is the immense care and attention we invest into growing large bulbs. We make sure it’s a high-quality product.”
Their customers agree: 90 per cent of the fresh garlic grown on Thistle Farm sells within the Creston Valley, mostly at farmers’ markets. To put this into perspective, that’s eight to 10 thousand pounds of garlic annually — around 50,000 bulbs — cultivated on just one acre of land in active production. With sales like this already, the Cantrells’ hard work is starting to pay off.
They’ve been thankful to discover that “British Columbians are willing to pay for true garlic — artisanal and beautiful.” Thistle Farm’s dried garlic products are also popular, with the flagship smoked garlic mill impressing new and repeat customers alike.
Unlike many small, independent B.C. farmers, the Cantrells are now able to earn their living entirely “on farm.” Neither of them works a day job, and they couldn’t be happier.
“We’re providing value to our community,” Kip explains. “We work hard every day because what we do is important. I never have to question or debate whether it’s a valuable contribution. We bring the flavour and I feel really good about that.”
Chilliwack Garlic Farm
5937 Sumas Prairie Rd., Chilliwack
@chilliwackgarlicfarm | 604.832.2459
North Arm Farm
1888 BC-99, Pemberton
northarmfarm.com | @northarmfarm
Thistle Farm
1497 Channel Rd., Wynndel
thistlefarm.ca | 250.431.8401 | @thistle.farm
