From Hand-Planting to Profitable: Building a 6-Acre Garlic Empire

Full Episode Transcript with Jana Yockey of Garlic Gods

---

[0:00] Introduction

Welcome to the Biz Grow Mojo podcast. The podcast where we get into real talk about business ownership, growth, marketing, learning lessons, and advice with real business owners. Here’s your host, Ryan Amen. Now, let’s get down to business.

I’m pumped to get this rolling. Let’s go.

In today’s episode, we’re diving into a business model that proves you don’t need thousands of acres to build a successful farm. Jana Yockey and her husband run Garlic Gods, a certified seed garlic operation in Idaho that’s turned just 6 acres into a thriving business shipping nationwide. From starting with hand planting a half an acre that left them crawling on the ground and exhausted to building a business that can generate 20 to $25,000 per half acre, Jana shares the real story of modern small-scale farming. We’ll explore the challenges of white rot disease that can destroy soil for up to 50 years, why most garlic farmers stay small by choice, and how the pandemic actually boosted their online sales. Whether you’re thinking about starting your own agricultural venture or just curious about the business side of specialty farming, this conversation is packed with practical insights and honest numbers that most farmers never share publicly. Let’s jump into it.

The Garlic Gods Origin Story

All right. Well, uh, Janet, glad to have you on the podcast. I appreciate you joining us. Um, let’s just get right into it. You got a very interesting business model. Why don’t you tell the audience a little bit about who you are and what you do?

Okay. Um I’m Jana Yockey. Uh my husband and I own Garlic Gods and we grow um seed garlic in Idaho and we’re in a white rock quarantine area. So we are certified disease-free white rot free uh seed garlic that we ship all over the United States to home gardeners and um garden centers.

That’s a very interesting business model. Um, what inspired you to get into this business?

Well, uh, I grew up on a farm and so did my husband and my we met in Florida. My dad was, uh, still here in Idaho and he decided to retire and sell his farm and I begged him not to. So, we moved back to Idaho thinking we were going to have a bunch of land to work and farm. and we ended up with 14 acres that he kept for me to use. And so we just had just a small acreage. And so we rented some land for a couple years and we were trying to figure out what we were going to do. We did a bunch of different stuff. Tried um farmers markets. We tried green houses. We tried um a bunch of different things and looked at a bunch of different models for small acreage.

And then we were helping a friend of ours move water and he said he had a friend who grew garlic and he was retiring. We should talk to him. That’s what we did. We went and talked to him and then we decided, you know what, we can do this on small acreage. And most garlic farmers in the United States um that sell seed garlic are small farmers. Most of them are between a half an acre and two acres. And we just decided to keep that and try to grow. And this year we planted six acres. And yeah, so last year we had seven acres, which I know doesn’t sound like a lot. And people always, you know, all these big farmers always say, “How can we make money off that?” But um it’s just such a niche product. So yeah.

Small Acreage Farming & Crop Rotation Requirements

Yeah. I mean, what do you think the the average, you know, farmer is is farming? How many acres? I mean, there’s some big ones around here. I mean, I’m sure that varies, but it’s amazing to be able to, you know, run a business in any type of farming with that, you know, small of an amount of land.

Right. Right. So, I don’t know what the average is. I know that um you know back in the day when my grandpa was a farmer, everybody had 80 acre farms, but nowadays it’s I would say if you don’t have a thousand or more acres, you’re probably not going to make it um without another source of income as well. Yeah. So I don’t I don’t know what the average would be, but it’s it’s small.

Yeah. Is this all you guys do then? You just grow seed garlic.

We just grow seed garlic. Yep. So, we bought a farm in 2022 and it’s 64 acres, 55 farmable acres. And so, we have our garlic and then we have cover crops. So, we’re just rotating so that we’re on at least a 5year rotation before the garlic goes back into the same ground again.

Wow. Wow. So, if you don’t rotate it, would you still be able to get a decent yield or is that pretty much required to to be able to get a good yield?

[5:00] The Threat of White Rot Disease

So, they say that you should rotate it at least every three years. Um, however, we did talk to one guy that grew garlic up in Fairfield and he had I want to say his property was maybe 3/4 of an acre and he grew onions and garlic only. And so, as soon as he would harvest his garlic, he would put it in cover crop and um and then replant. But that’s not suggested. It’s always suggested to rotate those and at least have at least three years before you put it back in the same place.

Interesting. So maybe if you were to build your soil up well enough, maybe you could kind of go against that that recommendation potentially, right?

Yes. Yeah. But you know, garlic is um garlic and onions, the alien family is something that has a lot of disease. So, if you overwork that land or get a disease in there, you’re not going to get it out. It white rot uh specifically can last in your ground basically anywhere from 20 to 50 years. Oh, wow. And so that’s why uh we’re in a quarantine area because so many onions are grown in Idaho and to protect the ground they have everybody has to be inspected and tested um to make sure you don’t have disease. So again, if we if you know, if you’re putting certified seed stock in your ground and it doesn’t have disease, potential of that coming in is probably way less than if you did not have those um requirements.

And so what happens if you get that type of rot? Can you not sell anything or is it just the seed that you can’t sell?

Okay, so the the white rot is um a disease that basically makes your garlic turn to mush. it’ll make your onions turn to mush. So, um, and it stays in the soil. So, you wouldn’t be able to use the garlic for eating. You wouldn’t be able to use it for seed. You wouldn’t be able to use it, period. In fact, it needs to be burned. And then that ground, you wouldn’t be able to plant anything in that family, onions, uh, garlic until that was out of the soil. And again, they don’t know specifically when it’s going to come out or how long it would take, but the average they’re saying is 20 to 50 years. Yeah, that’s a long time. You can plant other crops in there. Like you could plant grains and and potatoes and beets and stuff like that. I don’t think white rot would affect that, but as far as that onion family, you would not be able to.

Early Wins: The Pandemic Boost

Yeah. Yeah. That’s interesting. So, what were some of the early kind of breakthroughs and wins that you had when you were getting this business going?

Well, so our first year that we um planted and harvested, we we did farmers markets. We were trying to just grow up our seed stock before we started selling it um online. So, the first year that we actually had our website was 2020 and the pandemic hit. And actually the pandemic was really good for us because people were at home, stuck at home. So a lot of people got into gardening. And so our first year selling online, we had a lot of success just because people were looking for something to do. And so that helped us start and then we’ve just kind of grown from there. um a lot of word of mouth um emails and uh just kind of working the same kind of market that we did back then.

Marketing Strategies That Work

Yeah. So, so what are some of the marketing things that you found that have worked best? Your website obviously uh what type of things are you doing to, you know, get people to your website? Um and any what what else um have you found that worked if anything?

[10:00] Building the Brand

Okay, so we do a lot of Instagram marketing. Um, that’s where I’ve tried Facebook marketing, but that didn’t seem to work as well. I’ve done Google ads. Um, those work, but they’re they’re more expensive, so we tend to not do that as much. And, um, then with all the past clients that we’ve had or customers that we’ve had, we send out we do a lot of email marketing. So, we send out a lot of information about when to plant, when to harvest, all the stuff. and then we ask for referrals or get orders again from repeat customers.

Um, I’ve been working on my website and I’m really technically challenged, but I’ve done the whole website myself and I’m trying to learn. So, I’m trying to work on that SEO, writing blogs and trying to get that in there. Um, two years ago, I had a a magazine contact me. So, we did an article with them this summer or this spring. We had uh the local news in Twin Falls ask us to be in their little A um in Idaho clip. So, we were did that and then I tried contacting some other magazines and whatnot to get more information out about our farm in publications. So, still working on that. And I think uh I’m supposed to be in the Farm Bureau magazine in August, but I haven’t seen an actual um write up for that, so I’m not sure if that’s going to come out or not.

Okay. So, have you seen a lot of organic traffic that turned into business from your website then?

Yes, I think so. So, a lot of the uh times when I when I look up my um website to see where my um traffic is coming from, a lot of it is organic. Um and I think part of it is the name Garlic Gods. So, when people see that, they remember it versus so and so’s farm. You know, it’s harder to remember a name on somebody’s farm where garlic gods kind of sticks in the mind. And uh when we first started our business, my husband said that we should go with garlic gods. And I was like, uh I don’t know about that. You know, I don’t know if people find offense to that. Um but that’s what we went with and I think it’s worked out. A name that people remember is key.

Yeah. I love the logo, too. It’s great. You got Everybody’s got to check that out. It’s very cool.

Oh, yeah. My uh my father-in-law actually drew that and then we had it um we sent it into a um graphic design and they cleaned it up for us.

Pricing Strategy & Customer Profiles

Yeah. Very cool. Yes. That’s amazing. You’re getting a lot of traffic from from the internet. That’s where I found you guys. I had no idea that you were actually I ordered some garlic cuz I was thinking about I was kind of doing some research trying to figure out something that I might be able to do with a little bit of extra. I’ve got about a half an acre that um I was just trying to figure out something maybe could make a little bit of money kind of a side hustle. Um and and that’s where I kind of got looking into garlic and it seemed like it could be something you could potentially do on a smaller amount of land. Uh and that’s where I found you guys was just through that and um I was like this is really cool. Uh, you know, there’s a lot of varieties that are, you know, pretty expensive per pound for the gourmet garlic. Like, what type of prices um do you typically get for most of your your seed garlic per pound?

So, we charge about the same per pound uh depend uh across the board. So, our varieties, they’re all pretty much the same. I think our soft necks we’ve raised by 50 cents uh because we’re sold out of a lot of them. So, we don’t have as many soft necks. So, I’m trying to get people to purchase the hard necks more this year. Um, but we keep all our prices the same. A lot of websites, I’m always looking on people’s website, seeing their prices. Um, we are we we can sell quarter pound, half pound, or full pound. And our quarter pounds are $1050 to $11 for a quarter pound, $1650 to $17 for a half pound, and $26 to $27 for a full pound. And I watch because I don’t want to be the lowest guy, but I definitely don’t want to be the highest guy. And there are people that are selling quarter pounds for $18 and full pounds for $39. So it’s, you know, if you have less land, so like you said, if you had a quarter acre, a half an acre, so you were limited in the amount you could sell, those higher prices would go further because you’d probably still sell out. But because we grow so much garlic, um, we’re trying to keep our prices a little bit lower for people.

[15:00] Seed vs. Culinary Garlic Markets

Yeah. Yeah. Um, yeah, that’s interesting. Do does the seed garlic typically sell for more than say, you know, I’m just growing garlic to try to sell it to restaurants or something like that. Does it typically go for more? Is it about the same?

Seed garlic goes for more for sure. Okay. So, yeah. So, the seed garlic is uh 2 in in diameter or larger where, you know, I mean, you could obviously eat any of our garlic or plant any of the garlic. The smaller bulbs we sell as culinary garlic and we sell that at $10 a pound. Um we don’t really put that on our website until after we’ve cured and cleaned our garlic and see what how much weight we have um for seed versus for culinary. Um and then yeah, so all of our garlic’s grown exactly the same, but when you’re selling it for food, it is cheaper than if you’re selling it for seed stock.

And so to most of the people that buy garlic from you, are they trying to um sell it as a culinary use or are they trying to kind of do the same thing that you’re doing and sell it as seed typically? Do you know?

So most people that buy garlic from us are just home gardeners. So they’re buying it and then planting it in their own gardens at home. Uh we do have uh some nursery centers that buy it from us at a wholesale price and then resell it in their stores. uh such as Zamzo’s up in Boisee. They buy several well a couple thousand pounds usually a year and um and then they resell it to their clientele. Um we also have people that are like homesteaders or market gardeners that buy it and then grow it in their gardens and then sell it at the farmers markets the following year.

Okay. Do you have very many people that try to sell like, you know, large amounts bulk like to wholesalers or anything like that or, you know, do you know that of any of your customers that like maybe sell to a lot of restaurants or any anything along those lines?

I don’t think that they they buy it from us and then sell it restaurants. Um, I don’t think the price point would be there for them. We did have uh one company last year that um they were a distributor for grocery stores and they were going to be buying several thousand pounds from us, but when it came down to it, they decided not to. Um because they kept telling us, you know, we had agreed on a price and then they came back in at the very end and said, “Nope, we’re not paying you that price. We’re going to pay you this price.” And even though we had talked about it, I didn’t have a contract. So that was a lesson learned. Always have a contract. And um but but that’s the thing they told us. They said there’s just not a profit here for us. And that that is true. You know, you wouldn’t be able to buy our garlic at our prices and then resell it. There’s just not that profit margin there. That’s why a lot of the people that are market gardeners will grow it and then sell it.

That’s kind of what I was thinking more along those lines is if you know you knew of anybody that was buying from you growing and then trying to sell to like oh restaurants or anything like that.

Oh yes. Okay. Yeah. So there are there are a few people um I had a guy in North Carolina last year buy a couple I want to say five or six hundred pounds. He grew a bunch of it and then that’s what he does. He he goes to farmers markets. He sells to restaurants. Um he also has a website and sells seed. He was starting out. He’d been growing for a few years, but he was just expanding his um garden as well. So

Tools, Systems, and Inventory Management

Oh, wow. Okay, cool. Um has there been any like systems or tools that has you know kind of helped you run your business smoothly? I mean it’s a little bit of a there’s not a lot of technology I would imagine uh in the actual process, but you’re still selling online. So I mean there’s a lot of u you know things that come into play as far as that goes. I was just curious like have you found any specific tools that have really helped you in this business?

I try to find tools. My husband’s always telling me to figure it out. So, um that’s what I’m always trying to do. So, like we start our pre-orders in April and we don’t start shipping until September. We also don’t even harvest until July. So, when we start our pre-orders, we’re guesstimating what our yield’s going to be versus um last year’s. But everything’s changing because it’s a farm and you never know what your yield’s going to be from year to year. So, I I’m real conservative when I put in my inventory on my website for pre-orders. Um, when we harvest, I look at what I’ve already sold versus what it looks like I have and I’ll I’ll take stuff off like I have right now a couple of my varieties off the website because I just until I get it cleaned and weighed I I don’t know exactly what I have. So, that’s difficult. Um, I’m just trying to always base stuff on years prior, but again, everything changes. So that um I’m trying to get better with um Excel spreadsheets and I you know have um people that we use for our products as far as like our boxes and bags and stuffing for the boxes and labels, all that kind of stuff. I have um information spreadsheets on that, but most of it’s just, you know, out in the field. So it’s kind of it’s kind of hard to sure figure that out.

[20:00] The Reality of Manual Labor

And and as far as out in the field goes, do you what what type of tools do you guys use? Do you do most of it, you know, manually? Do you have any equipment that, you know, for processing, that sort of thing?

Yeah, we have one tractor. It’s um it’s a small tractor. It’s uh 70 horsepower, I think. And then we have um so Jeff does all of the uh field work. Um he does all the plowing, planting, um we do the cover crops, the discing, all that stuff. But we do it all with that one little tractor. So it takes a long time to do it because our our implements that we use are not very large. So we have we do have a garlic planter that we got our second year because the first year the very first year we started we we planted a half an acre and it took us four days and there was four of us and we were by the end crawling around like army crawls pulling ourselves with our arms because our bodies were so sore and it just took forever.

Huh? You did it all by hand.

We did it all by hand that first year. So the next year we bought a planter and we actually bought it from Lithuania and had it shipped over and that took several months um going through customs having it built and shipped. It was shipped on a on an actual ship. Um so then we had the planter. We have an undercutter for when we harvest. So we hook that to the tractor and it just goes under the soil, under the roots and lifts them. And then we manually pull each bulb and um hang it up in our cure room. So that’s all done manually. We um two years ago bought a little cultivator that goes on the tractor for weeding and it has tine weeders and finger weeders. So we use that, but we still have to go through with a a hoe and pull out weeds by hand every single season. I think we went through five different times by hand this year in addition to all the tractor work because we um don’t use any chemicals on our garlic at all. So, we just, you know, trying to keep up with the weeds is a full-time job.

Pests and Natural Resistance

Yeah. Interesting. Is um is garlic very susceptible to pests? I mean, it’s very resistant, right?

Sorry, there’s my dog. No. Uh, so there’s this uh there is a garlic Oh, I can’t even remember what it’s called, but it’s new to the United States and it’s back east. It hasn’t made its way out out west yet. Um, and I don’t believe it’s to the south either. I I think it’s mostly in like the northeast, but that will the garlic might I believe that um I’m not sure what what causes it or where it came from or or exactly what it does, but um the only other pest that I know that would affect garlic is thrift, which isn’t which is um an onion might and it usually comes on like in July or August. So, by the time we have it out of the ground is when it’s starting to come on. So, it hasn’t affected us, but we do check. It’s just a little tiny uh little black thing that goes in between the leaves. I’ve seen it on onions before. Um but I haven’t seen it on any of the garlic. And then as far as pests in the field, like mice, they don’t like garlic, so they pretty much stay out of there. Um, we get um on our farm we get deer and moose and all sorts of random things. Coyotes we have out there. Nothing seems to bother it.

Yeah. I’ve heard that, you know, planting garlic around your garden can actually help deter other pests.

I do that. I don’t know right a ton, but it seems good in theory, you know. So, they say it’s really good for strawberries. Yeah. Planting it next to strawberry bushes. It A pro again the problem is you’re going to harvest your garlic in you know June, July, August depending on where you’re at. So you are going to have some protection there for a while but after a while you’re going to pull your garlic out probably unless you just leave it in the ground to just be a protection. Right. Right. Right. Yeah.

[25:00] Starting Small: Manual Planting Methods

Um, so you know, going back to just the manual aspect of this, if somebody didn’t have any machinery and they wanted to, you know, maybe get into this to grow a little bit of garlic to maybe sell to local restaurants, what do you think reasonably somebody could plant? Like how how much space could they plant and do it all manually?

Oh, I’d say you could probably do you could easily do a half an acre manually. Um, and I that so as far as spacing goes, I’ve seen people that have had like uh plywood that they’ll put little dowels on and then use that as a spacer. So they’ll put that on the ground, step on it so it makes all the holes in their in their ground so that their spacing’s perfect. I’ve seen people that have just made um rows with a hoe and then plant it manually and then cover it. Um, I’ve seen people um grow garlic in um in boxes and also in pots. So, it really just depends on how much space you have. You can make anything work. And there is definitely market. There’s going to be a market for garlic no matter what. you know, even if you’re just selling it to your neighbors and and friends. But there are a lot of people that grow garlic that will grow it and sell to local restaurants or make powders or garlic um flakes or whatever and process the garlic after they’ve instead of instead of selling the garlic as garlic, they’ll process it into salts or powders or or anything like that and then sell that or maybe ferment into that black garlic.

Have you ever heard of that?

Yes, we have a we have a GL we have a black garlic fermenttor. Um I tried you can do it with a rice cooker and I tried doing that one year but my but my timing was wrong and it got so hard so I ended up buying one of the black black garlic. I’ve never sold black garlic. Usually we just make it and then use it ourselves. I just don’t know how to package it properly. But I know there are people that will um package it and sell it and and that Yeah. And that black So if somebody did buy garlic from us and then and then had um the fermenttor, the black garlic fermenttor, they could sell it and then make a profit because there is there is a niche market for that black garlic as well. There’s just not a lot of it made.

Income Potential: The $20-25K Half-Acre

Interesting. So what do you think somebody could make with like a half an acre if they you know bought seed garlic? Do you have any idea what you know what they can maybe reasonably expect to be able to make on that?

Yeah. Um I would say well depending on if you can get it all sold um 20 to 25,000 on a half an acre probably.

Oh wow. Yeah. Cool.

Customer Support and Education

Um and is there anything that you guys kind of do? It seemed like um you know when I talked to you before you had kind of a list of some places that buy like wholesale and and bulk and that sort of thing. Is there any kind of support that you guys kind of give for people that you know are wanting to buy garlic to to do something to you know turn around and sell to different places and that sort of thing.

Interested in becoming a guest sponsoring episodes or have suggestions for the show? Check out our website at bisgrmojo.com. Also, you can sign up for our newsletter where you’ll get updates about upcoming episodes and guests, special offers, insights, and breakdowns from previous episodes, as well as marketing and business tips you can apply to your own business. Go to busgrowmojo.com/newsletter.

Um, I have a lot of information. Um, I’ll send people information um anytime they ask. I’m not, you know, I’m never trying to be like, “No, I’m not going to tell you my secrets because um you can look up anything online.” But no, I I I walk I walk people through any process they have, any questions that they have. We send a two-page instruction with every order so that they can plant it. And then like I said, we have we have our blog post and then I send out information um about uh remembering to feed your garlic or fertilize your garlic, water your garlic, when to harvest your garlic, what to look for before harvesting it too early because the bulb actually um produces the last four to six weeks it’s in the ground. But if you leave it in the ground too long, then that starts to get too big and the papers will disintegrate and it won’t store as long. So there’s there’s a time there, timing, and yeah, I give people any information they they need or want and and we’re still learning, too. It’s like every year we’re like, “Okay, we’ve got this.” And then it’s like, “No, I have no idea what’s going on.” So, I’m always looking it up, too.

Um I have also found that uh the garlic uh farmers in the country and I I follow a lot of garlic farmers in the United States, Canada, Australia and and everybody if you have questions, they’re always there to help you. I’ve never found anyone that’s not willing to answer or help with things that they’ve experienced as well.

Why Garlic Farmers Stay Small

Yeah. So you’re saying that, you know, most of the the garlic farmers you’re aware of are kind of smaller operations. Why is that? Is it difficult to do at a large scale?

[30:00] The Labor-Intensive Reality

It’s because it’s very um it’s very handson and if you’re not willing to hire help, you’re not going to expand. and um the process of of harvesting, planting, and cleaning the garlic. Cleaning takes the longest. That’s our that’s our longest um process that we do. And we um hire we have a group of people that are just uh like subcontractors that do farm work for a lot of different farms, a lot of potato farm. Our cleaning process is kind of when they have downtimes doing other stuff so we can get a bunch of people out. But for harvest, we have 20 to 25 people helping us harvest. We have about that many people helping us clean. And then um planting because we have our planter, we just have to have one extra person because it takes three of us to plant even with that planter. But um that’s the reason most people stay small is because they’re like, I can do this. is just like you said before, I’m looking for something as a as an extra little bit of income, but when you’re growing it and then putting all that cash out, it’s like, well, that doesn’t do me any good. Didn’t didn’t give me extra money when I’m having to put all this money out. So, that’s that’s why I think most of them stay small. And um and then like I said, most people go to farmers markets. A lot of the um garlic farmers that I follow don’t even have websites. They just go to farmers markets and some of them will go to four or five farmers markets a week. So they can sell it. They’ll sell out of their garlic. It’s just do you have the time to do all that?

Yeah. Yeah. How much time would somebody have to expect to kind of put into this if they had a half an acre? I mean is that something that you know can be done pretty easily is just kind of a side project and full-time still or is that like no you’re going to be working quite a bit more than that?

You could do a half an acre with a full-time job. So, when we first started growing garlic, my husband did for I want to say the first three years that we were growing garlic. So, he worked full-time. I would work during the winters. Um and then during the during the spring, summer, fall during shipping, I did pretty much all the shipping. he would help when he had his days off and um did most of the weeding myself because it was it was small and and I could I could keep up with it on a half an acre. Uh that again, that’s what we started with. And um yeah, you could do it. If you had if you were one person and you had a half an acre and then a full-time job, you’d be tired for sure. But but you could still do it if um if you had somebody else to help you or like teenagers that could go out and weed or help with harvest. That’s one of the main things that um with growing garlic at that scale even at a at a half an acre is having a place to cure it. So when you cure it, it can’t be in the sun because the sun will um start to disintegrate the bowl. it it sunburns and then it won’t store as long and it’ll get soft spots. So the having the place to cure it out of the sun with airflow is key. So as long you know if you had a shop if you have a really large garage you know how to organize everything really well. So um that that’s doable for sure.

Probably got to keep it from freezing as well I would imagine.

[35:00] Curing Spaces: From Garages to Quonsets

Yeah. Yeah. So, it’s harvested in the in the summertime, so you don’t really have to worry about it freezing until until winter. Um, we have when we first started, we had a garage that we it was a shop and it was a open bay shop um that we had it hanging in with tarps on the side so that the sun didn’t get to it. That was our first year. Then we moved to an old dairy barn that was um flats in it. So, we still had some canvas tarps around so it could breathe, but the sun wasn’t getting to it. And that was a great cure room. It was just a old I mean, an old dairy barn. I’m talking from like the 30s. So, it was basically just stalls where they brought the cows in and hand milked them. And and now we have um we have a quonet that we had to insulate because it got too hot in there. So, we had to insulate it and then put vents in it. And we have dehumidifiers. Even though we’re in a very low humidity area, we have to have dehumidifiers in there and and dump our buckets several times a day. Um but now that we have it’s it’s insulated and so it stays cool in the summer, it stays warmer in the winter. We have heaters for that. Um if we don’t sell all our garlic, we can still work out of it. But for years at at the end of October, we would bring it into our house and still package and sell from there.

Oh wow. Yeah. Did your house smell like garlic?

Oh yeah. Yeah. Yes. For for years. For years we did that. And um every My son doesn’t live with us anymore, but he was a teenager. He was in high school. And we would stack it in his room. We’d bring tables in and just stack garlic. and we were like, we’d work out of the kitchen, but that’s where we would store it was in the bedroom. So, yeah, it it would smell like garlic every year. But yeah, I’m glad we don’t have to do that anymore, but it was fun.

Certifications and Regulatory Requirements

Yeah. Yeah, that’s crazy. Um, so are there any hoops that somebody would have to jump through if they were, you know, interested in getting into, you know, doing this as a a way to make some extra income or something like that? Um is is there any like you know certifications you know with the um you know any agricultural government you know licensing or anything like that like what would somebody what kind of hoops would somebody have to jump through to to be able to sell you know to restaurants and things like that.

Okay. Well you should look um at your local um requirements in the state because Idaho does require inspections. We have to fill out paperwork every year. There’s a bunch of forms that we have to fill out. Um, we also have to have a nursery license to sell because we sell seed stock. So, we go through that process every year. If you’re selling it to restaurants, um, GAP certification is pretty good. Um, which is um, good agricultural practices and and restaurants or stores, grocery stores really like to see that kind of certification. Um the main thing is to find you could contact your state um department of agriculture and they’ll let you know if there’s anything specific to that state. Like I said, Idaho is we’re in alium quarantine in 21 counties. So basically southern Idaho and so those counties have to have the inspections by the um so we have to have the inspections before we harvest our garlic. So they come out and check everything in the field and look for any signs of disease. They’ll dig up some bulbs, look at bulbs, um and then and then filling out all the paperwork with them. So I would say us in Idaho and um Malier County in Oregon and then there’s a couple counties in Washington state that are pretty strict, but for the most part, I don’t think you would necessarily need the certification. If you are selling seed stock, you might have to get a nursery license. Um, but the department of a in each state would be able to tell people what exactly they need.

Life Impact: Working with Your Spouse

Okay. Yeah, that’s good to know for sure. Um, so as far as you know, just doing this business and and you know, running this farm, um, what’s how has that changed your life? How has that impacted your life?

[40:00] The Reality of Farm Life

Um, well, working with your spouse all the time is is a challenge sometimes. So, it’s, you know, working together, living together, and we live out in the middle of nowhere. Our closest neighbor is over two miles away from us. So, it’s it’s it’s really just the two of us and our animals. I mean, it’s a great lifestyle, but you I don’t know. You have to be able to work with the people that you live with, if that’s what you’re doing with the people you live with. Um, we also have had um, you know, we’re so busy during the summer, the spring, summer, and fall that we can’t really work an outside job at this point. But there are years that we’ll go out and get jobs in the winter time just to still supplement our income.

Yeah. Do you feel like you’ve achieved success in this business? What does that look like for you?

I think we have. Um we’re still looking to grow. It’s we work all year long and by the end of the year we basically paid all of our bills. So it’s it’s not we’re we’re not saving any money at this point. We’re hoping to, you know, eventually. But we were lucky cuz we did we were able to buy our farm. Uh when we were looking to buy a farm, we were wanting to buy a farm of between 50 and 100 acres. That was our goal. But we the hardest part was finding the land. We looked all over the United States. Um but we decided to stay here because we started in Idaho and we were like, “Okay, we know the climate. We know we’re not going to have to deal with that humidity that they have in the south, storms, you know, all that different stuff.” So, we decided to stay local. Um, but finding a farm was difficult. And then we we decided, you know, we’re going to probably end up finding some land, but not having a house and then having to live in a travel trailer for a couple years. Um, we were just lucky enough that when we did find the the acreage we were looking for, it did have a house and it had shops. And that was the main thing we were looking for was the shops because we needed an area to cure the garlic. We would have lived in a travel trailer if need be, but luckily we didn’t have to do that.

Yeah, it’s kind of a bonus, huh?

Yeah, definitely. Would you say this business has given you like more freedom and opportunities in your personal and professional life?

It’s definitely given us more freedom in the winter time, but uh during the during the season, we haven’t even been able to go camping the last couple years because there’s something always going on. something, you know, like my husband right now, he’s been trying to get the cover crop down that we had um planted last fall. It got a little too big because um equipment broke down and then we had to buy new equipment. Now it’s so high and he’s trying to till it in and disc it in and get it prepared for planting cover crop again this next fall. So, it’s trying to decipher what we’re going to do next year, like are we going to have a green chop come in from a dairy? Um, do we mow it down earlier? So, all that kind of stuff. There’s days when we have plenty of time, but we’re pretty much working seven days a week at this point during the summer.

The Challenge of Starting a Modern Farm

Yeah. Amazing though to be able to start a farm in this day and age because it seems like that’s increasingly hard to start if you don’t already have if you haven’t inherited a lot of land, you know, to actually get into. So it’s impressive to to see somebody, you know, doing that and not necessarily need secret to to do it and be able to make it work, right?

[45:00] What They’d Do Differently

Yeah. So So like I said, when I started, there was a few things we looked into when we first started when we were looking for a niche market. Um, we looked into lavender, we looked into hops. I guess a lot of people have gotten into hops and I somebody told me that the market had crashed, but I I don’t know how true that is. Um we looked at um doing green houses with tomatoes, lettucees, um hemp. Hemp is a thing that we looked into. A lot of equipment’s needed for that and and hemp had just barely come into Idaho and apparently there was a lot of um there was a lot of restrictions about that. And we got we got our loan um because we had been farming for a few years before we got the loan for our farm. So, we got it through the FSA. Well, there was even restrictions on buying property and getting a loan through the FSA. So, depending on where you’re getting your loan from, that would be hard. So, so you have to kind of look at all that stuff. And but the hardest part I would say was finding the small acreage of land because all the farmers all the big farmers can you know they have the cash and they have the ability to gobble it up and the people that are looking for small farms don’t have it’s so expensive and then just to be able to be like I just need a little time and people if somebody comes in and offers them cash right now they’re more likely to take that. Luckily, we we bought our property, the um the people that owned it, it had been in their family since their grandma. So, their grandma had it, then the then the grandson had it, and um they wanted somebody that was going to live on the land and love the land versus having it be part of a big corporate farm. So, that’s how we ended up with this one because it took nine months for us to close on that loan.

Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah. That’s crazy. What what would you do differently if I had to start over, if anything?

Um, I probably, well, it’s funny because I’m just talking about buying our farm, but I probably would have waited a couple more years to buy the farm. Um, yeah, just to have a, you know, have a few more years of income before having that large payment. um because if we didn’t have the farm payment, we would we would be able to have some money in the bank, but having that payment doesn’t allow for that. So that’s again why we have the jobs during the winter time a lot of times. Um so that we can just kind of buy our food and pay our car payment, you know.

Yeah. Yeah.

Final Advice: Start Small

any advice you would give to listeners that are, you know, considering, you know, taking some land, you know, maybe not at the scale you are, maybe at that scale, maybe less. What’s the best advice you think you could you give to somebody that wants to grow garlic to make some income?

I’d say probably start small, you know. Um, a lot of people I’ve had people call me every year that say they want to they just want a small garlic farm. They’re going to start with five acres. And it’s like, oh my gosh, you have no idea. Because again, it’s so much labor to grow the the garlic. Not, you know, like you see potatoes, there’s all this equipment. And granted, there is there is also equipment for garlic as well. Um, but until you’re to that large scale, it’s not feasible to buy all that equipment. So, um, start small. Um, get a market for it. you know, decide how you’re going to sell it, whether you’re going to process it, um, or try to sell it to seed or to, um, grocery stores or restaurants. And if you were, if that’s your model is to, um, sell it to grocery stores or restaurants, then maybe talk to people and get some contracts before you started growing it. Um, just so you know, you could sell it because putting in all that labor and then having all the garlic at the end of the year and not being able to sell it is, I think, would be disheartening.

Yeah. Yeah, for sure. A lot of work to to uh you know, put into all that and then uh you know, let it go to waste. For sure. Right.

Where to Find Garlic Gods

Awesome. I really appreciate, you know, you diving into the weeds and um you know, letting letting the audience kind of know a little bit about what you’re doing and how you’re going about it. Um where can, you know, listeners go to learn a little bit more about you and your business or connect with you?

Okay. Um Garlic God’s Farm. that uh sorry, garlicgods.com is our website. Um we’re on Instagram and Facebook. Uh garlic gods. And that’s pretty much all I’m at right now. I don’t have Twitter or anything else. Still trying to learn how to market myself. So that’s a process. Yeah. Right. But Garlic gods, garlic gods.com is the main place to find us.

Okay, great. Any promotions or anything like that that you know listeners should be aware of?

Um if at checkout if you put Idaho in as a code, you can get uh I think it’s 15% off.

Oh, cool. And I did um the Idaho Preferred. We’ve done their holiday gift box the last year. So, we had a coupon that was in that and that’s where that code come from. But if you would like I can also I I just started an affiliate this year. It’s my first time doing an affiliate. I have one. So, I can always set up a code for you as well.

Oh, cool. Yeah, that sounds good. Let’s talk about that more. Okay.

I appreciate you coming on the podcast. It’s been really really interesting to hear your story and, you know, how you got going and uh hear a little bit more about your business. I really appreciate it.

All right. Thank you so much. Thank you.

[47:00] Closing

You’ve been listening to the Biz Grow Mojo podcast with Ryan Amen. Make sure you like, follow, and subscribe so you don’t miss an episode. Thanks for listening. We’ll see you next time on the Bisgrow Mojo Podcast.