I started my farming career at my first farm, Blue Gentian, in St. Paul, Minnesota. There were several old-timers I learned a lot from in those early days of farming. Henry Hildebrandt & Dave Frattalone were two farmers who were in their 70’s and 80’s about the time I started farming. Their families had a long history of growing vegetables for the people in the St. Paul area and sold their produce at the farmer’s markets. Henry’s family had a long history of being good tomato growers and had 2 acres of cold frames that they used to grow vegetables in during the off-season—they even pulled off radishes in March! Dave Frattalone was from a well-respected Italian family who had been supplying St. Paul for years. Both of these gentleman were instrumental in teaching me many important things about farming that you just can’t learn about in a text book, seed catalog or really in any way other than by doing it. So how do you get an old-timer to teach you things and share their knowledge? You offer to plow their fields! That tactic worked well with Henry who lived close to my farm. In exchange for my labor, we developed a good neighborly relationship that opened up many doors for me to learn about growing vegetables. Conversely, Dave lived further away in Little Canada and was a little harder to warm up to. In Atina Diffley’s book, Turn Here Sweet Corn, she describes Dave as “The King of the Saint Paul Farmers’ Market.” At that time, Dave was the only one at the market who grew and sold garlic. I was intrigued by Dave’s garlic and tried to talk to him about growing it. Unfortunately old Dave had no interest in talking to me about garlic. It was clear he did not want to teach anyone else how to grow this valuable crop, so he remained tight-lipped for several years!
Well, I still wanted to learn how to grow garlic, even if Dave wasn’t willing to help me. At that time I did know Dave was buying garlic from an old seed company in California, Basic Vegetable. He grew a softneck variety that he planted in the spring and produced small bulbs that he harvested in the fall. Knowing little more than that about garlic, I had to do my own research. I started reading and found a farmer in Canada who grew a different type of garlic, a hardneck variety. He produced beautiful garlic, but one of the keys to his success was planting it in the fall. I started experimenting with growing garlic and quickly learned some key lessons, including the importance of careful seed selection. Since seed garlic wasn’t as readily available as it is today, I learned how to save “seed” from each year’s garlic crop to replant. After several years of experimenting with growing garlic, I took one of my nicest bulbs of garlic over to Dave Frattalone. When he saw the quality and size of my garlic, he perked up in interest and was all ears. I willingly shared with him everything I had learned about garlic and on that day I broke through to old Dave. After that experience, Dave was much more willing to share his farming knowledge with me, knowing I’d do the same for him.
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