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Events & News

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Workshops

Go HERE to learn more about our comprehensive Growing Garlic Successfully & Profitably Workshops and to register to attend. 
 

Public Appearances

Read the June 2017 Country Life in BC article that came out of Jim's presentation about the future of Canadian garlic at the 2017 Pacific Agricultural Show.

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Plan Your Garlic Farm

If you've ever dreamed of farming garlic, small scale or large, then you'll find Rasa Creek Farm's new Planning Your Garlic Farm© spreadsheet indispensable. It's free!

Canadian Seed Garlic

Rasa (Rah'-sa) Creek Farm: suppliers of organic (certified by PACS) & non-organic seed garlic and bulbils to gardeners and farmers across Canada and across borders.

Rasa Creek Farm represents a team of growers who produce high quality, lab tested seed garlic bulbs and umbels. Bulk discounts are built into our shopping cart, but call for special pricing if ordering more than 1,000 bulbs. Veteran garlic growers can zoom straight to our Online Garlic Store and begin ordering what they want, and beginners can learn everything they need to get started, from detailed cultivar descriptions to how to grow your own.

Jim Capellini

Getting giddy in the garlic

drying shed

Post and Pre-Sales Support for Our Customers

The service Rasa Creek Farm provides to its customers does not stop once the garlic walks out the door. We're here to answer questions and help you grow the best garlic possible, regardless of how much, or little, you grow. We also provide tools and solutions for farming and running a profitable garlic business.

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  • Planning Your Garlic Farm© Beta v1.1 A comprehensive and easy to use spreadsheet program to help you design a multi-year strategy for growing a profitable garlic business. A short YouTube tutorial explains all its features and functionality.

  • Garlic Growing Workshops: We'll periodically be hosting workshops on how to Successfully and Profitably Grow Garlic.

Canadian Garlic Comeback

In the late 1990's, China flooded the market with under-priced garlic and put many Canadian growers out of business, knocking the number of acres planted in garlic down from 4,500 in the year 2000, to just 300 in the year 2002. Small farms and independent gardeners, like you, have become key players in bringing Canadian garlic back to life.

As illustrated in the graph at right, fresh garlic imports had been steadily increasing from 2009 thru 2015 (with the exception of 2010 due to economic recession). But, in 2016 the tide began to turn, just slightly, down from 18.44 thousand metric tons (yes, that's 40,653,241 pounds) to 18.39 thousand metric tons. It's hard to say for certain, but this may in part be due to the increased quantity of garlic now grown here in Canada.

Canadian Garlic Imports through 2018

Volume of fresh garlic imported in Canada ('08-'19)

Everyone who visits farmers' markets and attends garlic festivals knows about the difference between domestic garlic and the imported variety, but there's still a huge consumer base that is aching to be converted. Rasa Creek Farm is on task.

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Building Garlic Supply

Since 2015, Rasa Creek Farm has trained many new garlic farmers through our series of Growing Garlic Successfully & Profitably Workshops. We need volume in order to stand a chance in the larger marketplace; volume, coupled with communication and coordination between garlic farms.


Creating a New Garlic Product

It would be foolish to compete with imported garlic on price. Quality hardneck, domestically grown garlic is an entirely different product and needs to be set apart as such. Rasa Garlic has some ideas along these lines and will be implementing them in the coming years, establishing in the minds of consumers an immediate recognition of the vast differences and why domestic garlic is worth the extra cost.

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Meeting and Increasing Garlic Demand

Currently, consumers face a choice between "Canadian grown vs imported." We want to change that limited perspective, making it a choice between "An organic Rocambole with jaw dropping flavor... a gorgeous Porcelain with 4 immense cloves... a scintillating Marbled Purple Stripe that dances circles on your tongue—OR—an irradiated, sterile and dried out mini-bulb from overseas." See the difference? Demand & Supply... each must grow.

Jim & Lalitha

Jim & Lalitha—Owners

The Farm and the Farmers

Rasa Creek Farm (pronounced Rah'-sa... meaning juice or divine nectar and related to the sanskrit term Rasona which means garlic) is 126 acres of paradise located in Trinity Valley, one hour northeast of Vernon, BC. The land and weather here are perfect for gourmet hardneck garlic production and the farm's owners are uniquely qualified to deliver outstanding garlic to your home or business.

Lalitha Thomas trained as a master herbalist in the 1970's and is an internationally acclaimed author. Her most popular title, 10 Essential Herbs, has sold over 30,000 copies in five languages. One chapter from 10 Essential Herbs covers garlic and we've made that chapter available for free on our Garlic for Health page, where you can also purchase your own signed copy of the book.

Educational Tools

While we're on the subject of resources, be sure to investigate the many links and educational materials we have on our Resources, How to Grow Garlic and Garlic for Health pages, where we've assembled:

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  • Instruction for Growing Garlic from clove and bulbil

  • Free downloads of Lalitha Thomas' internationally acclaimed book on Herbalism, 10 Essential Herbs.

  • A Bibliography of the finest books on garlic

  • New page dedicated to the Rasa Creek Grower Team and full of useful links and sources for; amendments, supplies, equipment, government agencies and more.

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