A Garlic Testament: Seasons on a Small New Mexico Farm

by Stanley Crawford

From his New Mexico mountain home, award-winning author Stanley Crawford writes about growing garlic and selling it.


"To dream a garden and then to plant it is an act of independence and even defiance to the greater world."--Stan Crawford

Genres: Nonfiction, Food, Nature, Memoir, Environment, Gardening, Agriculture

255 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

Crawford is the author of "Gascoyne," "Petroleum Man," "Log of the S.S. The Mrs Unguentine," "A Garlic Testament: Seasons on a Small New Mexico Farm," "Mayordomo: Chronicle of an Acequia in Northern New Mexico," "The River in Winter," and "Some Instructions to My Wife Concerning the Upkeep of the House and Marriage and to my Son and Daughter Concerning the Conduct of their Childhood." He lives in new Mexico with his wife, RoseMary, where they own and run a garlic farm.

Reviews

[Abby]

Approximately a year ago my copy of this book vanished from a chair in my own house, where I set it down while (fittingly) cooking. I was pretty upset. My particular copy came from a used bookstore in Albuquerque and is signed by the author. But these artifacts have a way of coming back to me, and eventually the book emerged out of the maze of things my eighty-year-old housemate had to leave behind when she moved.

So one year later, I finished the thing, and I am so glad I did. Smart, lucid, pragmatic--this is everything I wanted. Mr. Crawford describes the cycles of his life beautifully and without affectation. I felt at home. Reading Crawford reminded me of the kind of life I want. He reminds me why that kind of life is difficult, but why it's worth it, but why it's incredibly difficult, but why you have to shrug your shoulders at the end of the day and say it's worth it...because whether it's the land or a person or one particular crop plant, that is just the way love works.

[Deb · Rating 4 out of 5]

Garlic farming as a subversive activity? Maybe. There is much more to this book than garlic lore. Stanley Crawford muses on the meaning of life, what makes it worthwhile and how raising something as seemingly insubstantial as garlic connects us to eternity.

"You pay homage when and where you can. I love the smell of the bulb as the earth opens and releases it in harvest, an aroma that only those who grow garlic and handle the bulb and the leaves still fresh from the earth can know. It is a smell richer and more vibrant and expansive than what most people think of as garlic. Anyone who gardens knows these indescribable presences - of not only fresh garlic, but onions, carrots and their tops, parsley's piercing signal, the fragrant exultations of a tomato plant in its prime, sweet explosions of basil. They can be known best and most purely on the spot, in the instant, in the garden, in the sun, in the rain. They cannot be carried away from their place on earth. They are inimitable. And they have no shelf life at all."

Yes, yes, yes.

[Kate Savage · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked the sections about weeds and magpies and the land. I didn't as much like his big ideas on culture. Not because I think he's wrong, but just because I've mostly escaped old white men with big ideas on culture. Crawford is in on the joke of being a cranky farmer, so that softens the blow. And he did achieve his goal of making me want to grow garlic again.

[Savannah Hendricks · Rating 4 out of 5]

For a book about garlic it was rather interesting. It takes a skilled hand to write 239 pages of essential, garlic.

[Grant · Rating 5 out of 5]

Musings around a life growing Garlic on a small New Mexico farm was rather pleasing albeit odd to think about. Was a nice reminder of the importance of hard work and imagery of my home state I so dearly love and miss.

[Shultonus shultonus · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the older books in this relatively new genre (I dropped everything and started gardening). While it isn't the best in story-telling, it shines through as one of the best because of its' maturity. One part philosophy, one part social critic, one part growing garlic in New Mexico; It reminds us of the vital connection to land and community. Comparison to Thorough or Leopold would be appropriate. Pulling no punches this book is honest, and thoughtful. I think that fact that the write has spent 15 years growing food, rather than a couple of short years certainly reflects the things that matter when the dust is settled and the irrigation ditches are dug.

[Pippa GSD · Rating 4 out of 5]

A quiet, but swift-moving volume. It moves along, I suppose, because of Crawford's effortless writing style. He gets across his deeper and more prosaic ideas about farming, neighborliness, desert life, peace, and more without ever attempting to impress us with the depth or artfulness of his insights.

[Kate]

"From his farm high in the Sangre de Cristo mountains, the award-winning author of Mayordomo explores the intimate, exhilarating relationship that grow up between a farmer and the earth that slowly yields to his labors. Threaded with the history and culture of a plant prized since ancient times, A Garlic Testament examines the vivid mysteries of earth, win, water, bulb and seed. This is soul food not just for gardeners, but for all who hunger after a way of life that nourishes both body and spirit."
~~back cover

I would almost label this book as whimsical but that it's language is more serious -- rooted firmly in the land and the garlic, with occasional forays into philosophy or reminiscences of interactions with customers in farmers' markets in Santa Fe and Taos. A lovely, thoughtful creatively written paean to living the simple life, away from the major "civilized" towns and cities, with their 9 to 5 jobs and their inescapable commercialness. It's a book to be read slowly, an essay or two at a time, so the reader can savor the wordsmithing, and the throughts that slowly mature in the mind of man intensely intertwined with the land and his neighbors.

[Ben Lyman · Rating 5 out of 5]

I may be biased, because I’ve wanted to read this book for some time and fortunately received it as a Christmas gift, but it was an excellent quick read! The writing is extremely vibrant, and the author has a beautiful way with language, observation, introspection, biting humor, and metaphor. I was pleasantly surprised when the book would diverge from garlic and its planting, care, harvest, and marketability - all fantastic topics - to the adjacent water, equipment, or social aspects in the family and community. Something most of us take for granted in a supermarket lives an entire history prior to purchase. Even more exciting were tangents and anecdotes sprinkled in of diverse wildlife, Adobe brick, nuclear research, and more. Somehow, they all connected to garlic and life on a New Mexico farm and one man’s passion for living a different lifestyle than what most of us experience.

[Ryan Cope · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful, richly descriptive accounting of what it is like to grow garlic in northern New Mexico. But it is so much more than just growing garlic. Stanley brings such vivid imagery to his writing, detailing his personal accounts of both farming, and living. I so enjoyed all his stories, from the specifics of how to physically plant garlic cloves and what top-setting garlic is, to a brief history primer on Los Alamos, and to his recounting of a rescued magpie operation. And the details of the landscapes within which he lives and farms! Beautiful. The way he concludes this book left me with wet eyes, for it is a reminder of the vast, intrinsic value that growing food offers us. Such a delightful read.

[Kyle · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. In a way, I think I read it at the right time - like any good book can do, it seemed to fit seamlessly into the fabric my mind’s been weaving lately.

Subjective timing aside, the book is lovely. Crawfords writing is incredibly sound and wise. At its core, the book is a meditation on slowness, and life at a smaller, more community-based scale. He writes with an almost romantic appreciation of what it means to sit, observe, and learn over a lifetime - all the things the soil, rain, sun, and plants will teach you, and equally all that can be learned before 8am on farmer’s market day. Big recommend, because even if you don’t get any of that out of this book, you’ll probably learn a thing or two about garlic.

[Jean Strumbos · Rating 5 out of 5]

A slice of quiet life from a curmudgeonly author-turned-garlic farmer. If you can stumble upon a used copy at a second hand bookshop in Taos, that would be best. If you live in the Rocky Mountain region, and are trying your hand at vegetable gardening, all the better, though any appreciation for gardening will surely do. A lovely book of essays structured around the growing cycle of garlic on his farm, with rapturous, wry observations on the most minute of developments, and practical advice from a pre-internet time, filtered through an author’s language. The odd cultural reference felt timeless and of the moment, despite its 1992 publication.

[Tricia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I finished this great book of essays just before we went to stay on this farm! I found the farmstay on AirBnb and then was happy that my library had a few of Crawford's works.
This book felt so current that I didn't look at the publication date until I was finished, so it was a bit of a mindf*&$ to realize that it was written 30 years ago. I got to the farm expecting everything to be as it was in the book and that was not the case. Since then I've been dwelling on mortality and wisdom and what it must feel like to be a garlic farmer for >30 years who has the same conversations with earnest, starstruck guests.

[Jessica · Rating 1 out of 5]

I love a good farm memoir, but I just really couldn't get into this one. I was really turned off at the end of chapter 3 when he compares planting to sexual organs - "...cuts a deep crease, a vaginal opening in the moist dark earth, into which the twin riders, testicular in function, drop the white-skinned cloves..." (p. 16) That was a HUGE turnoff, but as this book was originally published in 1992 I was going to keep giving it a chance. But, I could only get about 50 pages in before giving up. Not interesting or particularly well written, in my opinion.

[Aubrey Renee Schoff · Rating 3 out of 5]

Several chapters of this book were on-par with Leopold’s “A Sand County Almanac” and shared the detailed observational qualities of his writing intertwined with the cultural reflection we enjoy. However, several of these chapters lost me when the narrative of day to day work on the farm or at the market dove too deeply into details that didn’t seem to enhance the story. At times, the chapters seemed more like reading a journal entry than a curated essay and this is why I awarded this book one less star.

[Luke · Rating 3 out of 5]

Yes, lots about growing garlic, and northern New Mexico seasons. A solid entry in the genre of environmental and philosophical essays written over long spans of reflecting while sitting on a tractor or walking the rows, the sharpest points are in his interactions at markets, asking what vampires we're all afraid of or whether in his considerations of organic inputs and outputs he should interrogate his customers back about where their dollars footprints trace.

[Diane McKenzie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Crawford writes an insightful novel about the life of a garlic farmer and his family in New Mexico that made this reader feel as if she were planting, weeding, and harvesting this precious crop. Only four stars because the book could have been a little shorter but very descriptive and well written with a nice literary flare.

[Maria LaFontan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Its always refreshing to read the tales of other farmers. Just when you think you've reached an all time level of back breaking stupidity; you realize you are not alone! And then the reality: farming is a dare, a defiance towards the natural world AND it feels real good!!

[Margo · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautiful reflection on a year of planting and harvesting, with meditations on renewal, growth, and a world both new and ancient. Amazing and disturbing how his comments on government and ecology, written in 1990, could have been written for today.

[Rogue Reader · Rating 3 out of 5]

Crawford's memoir is a lyrical account of garlic's four seasons on his New Mexico farm, carved from the wilds with hard work and a dream. I love garlic and better appreciate fresh, home grown rather than a China import. Too, Crawford gives me confidence that I can grow garlic too.

[Marcia Lawrence · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a gem! Part memoir, part philosophical poem, part garlic growing how-to, and all set in the magical high desert of northern New Mexico. Highly recommend. (And now I can't wait to find Crawford's "Mayordomo".)

[Gwen · Rating 5 out of 5]

On the surface, this book catalogues the seasons on a garlic farm, just down the road from us in Dixon. It it’s more than that. It’s also a meditation on what constitutes a well-lived life and how partnership with the land gives meaning to life.

[Sabrina · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have drawn out my reading of this book so it could never end. Beautiful, clever, comforting, and rare as any book I’ve ever read.

[Grant Scalf · Rating 5 out of 5]

A lovely book. I will be seeking out the other Crawford titles after this introduction.

[Thomas O'Malley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stylistically a little like Edward Abbey, if he focused his attention on cultivated land instead of the wild.

[Sage · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cute read, with some lovely pastoral passages, not too much more than that

[Jes Tyler · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you enjoy E.B. white’s essays from Maine, this is a great book for you.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 stars leaning towards 4.

not born into a farming family, crawford came to it only as an adult. this aspect provides endless subject matter for his book. his decision making, errors, learning experiences and day-to-day duties culminate as a well-written "life in a place" story that features man, plant and animal as its characters. crawford embraces his daily interactions with the earth, the seasons, the local wildlife and his customers, and uses these experiences and observations to frame ponderings on society, philosophy, psychology, ecology, sustainability and more. it feels like i've been listing a great number of topics covered here, and yet one of the best things about this book is its simplicity. the language is simple, the work is simple, the man is simple, the messages are simple.

i'd put this book on the shelf with the couple of things i've read by william least heat moon. while moon's writing feels more inspired - perhaps because he is generally traveling while crawford here is sedentary - the two men are endeavoring to flush out similar morsels of life.

recommended for garlic eaters, gardeners, food and cooking enthusiasts, people who shop at farmer's markets and readers of geographic non-fiction(?).

[Jerry · Rating 4 out of 5]

A story of raising garlic from planting to harvest in Northern New Mexico. To tell the truth, I just read this, and I can't remember much except that it was a source of comfort during a time of stress. The predictability of patterns, the peace from nurturing and nature, the ebb and flow of time. It was about knowing your neighbors (both human and non) and still, not knowing your neighbors. The innocence of a question, and the depth of thoughts and emotions it brings. All I can say is that this was a soothing book about traditions of the earth - farming - and it brought some peace into my life. Thank you.

[NOLaBookish aka blue-collared mind · Rating 3 out of 5]

The odd thing about doing tons of travel is that you find yourself in the next place thinking about the last place. An example is on my recent trip to Great Barrington Massachussets I found this book about a farmer from Santa Fe NM, who sold at the farmers market there. Sometimes I am humbled by the secret life of books and how far they travel....

So I picked it up to see what that farmer thought about 21st century farming and markets.
And he did just that. And he grows heirloom garlic too which makes him a hero in my book.
So next time you're in, say, Columbus Ohio, try to look for a book on Mississippi homesteading.