THE GARLIC PRODUCER

There was always a dream to grow something on Sophie and Mark’s property on Flinders Island. Originally, there was a desire to grow capers, however due to quarantine issues, that dream had to be shelved. Instead, the garlic dream took off, as Sophie was able to source garlic from a local on the Island.

The first crop was a total of 300 bulbs which was grown in the vegetable patch. “I really had no idea what I was doing, but somehow the garlic that I produced that year was the beginning of great things.”

Life is extremely busy on the farm, but Sophie wouldn’t have it any other way. Sophie is supported with her dreams by her husband Mark. Mark is a local “through and through”, a third generation islander grazing merino sheep, in addition to running a transport company delivering livestock to the Lady Barron wharf where they are shipped to Tasmania and the mainland.

“There’s so many opportunities, you have just got to tap into them,” Sophie enthuses.

That’s exactly what she did 13 years ago when she tested the waters, planting a modest 300 bulbs of garlic where they live on Brymworth Farm opposite Marshall’s Bay at Emita.

Over several years, Sophie has increased her production and hasn’t looked back. Sophie’s record season saw the quantity of 95,000 bulbs planted of her organic Flinders Island Purple Garlic, however she has since scaled back. It proved too much for a number of reasons, and compromised the quality of the product.

There’s a real pragmatism in her approach to farming and product development.

“I’m happy to stick with something that grows really well, and I know the quality of the end product is there,” she says.

She is taking a similar approach with capers. After a trial with a small number of capers, Sophie has increased the number of plants to 200, which she looks forward to producing her first substantial yield in 2021/22.

Expanding her product line is a priority for Sophie, with the experimentation of Black Garlic, which will hopefully appear on the website soon.

Black garlic is a regular bulb that is slowly cooked at a regulated temperature. The process gradually breaks down the sugars which produce dark brown and black clove colours, with a complex sulphurous caramelised flavour.

Growing and harvesting garlic is an eight-month cycle, and on Brymworth Farm it is painstakingly planted by hand from mid-March and harvested in November.

To cover the three to four month period where good fresh Australian garlic can’t be found, Sophie offers a dehydrated version.

“With a lot of our smaller, leftover or damaged garlic, we peel it and put it through a dehydrator, so that we can provide garlic all year round,” she says.

It is a lot of hard work, but the rewards you get from producing an amazing product, down to the conversations that are had with all their loyal customers has been the ongoing drive to continue and grow Sophie’s dream.