Garlic Festival-Goers Breathe Easy Despite Harvest Woes

A stubborn fungus is stalking California’s self-proclaimed garlic capital. For the first time in 40 years, the world’s largest fresh garlic producer didn’t sow a single bulb here.

But that isn’t fazing the locals. Gilroy residents have simply imported extra garlic--from Fresno--for this weekend’s 22nd annual garlic festival, an event that usually draws more than 100,000 people to this small community south of San Jose.

Organizers say Gilroy remains a garlic-lovers paradise, and that there will be more than 4,000 pounds of the bulb spicing up 7 tons of beef, 4 tons of calamari, 3 tons of pasta and 3 tons of shrimp this weekend.

“We’re not going to become the Gilroy Lobster Festival or the Gilroy Pokemon Festival,” said Jim Habing, president of the Gilroy Garlic Festival 2000.

Not all of Gilroy’s soil is infected with white rot, a fungus spread by infected seed or contaminated soil. Some Gilroy growers, such as Ralph Santos of El Camino Packing, are still harvesting the community’s claim to fame.

“Gilroy hasn’t produced all the garlic for a long time, but that doesn’t mean we’re not the garlic capital,” Santos said. “And we’ll have more garlic at the festival this year than we know what to do with.”

The spread of white rot prompted Don Christopher of Christopher Ranch, the world’s largest fresh garlic producer, to leave the company’s 200 acres here fallow this season.

Christopher, who co-founded the garlic festival, said most of Christopher Ranch’s annual 70 million pounds of garlic is grown on 4,000 acres in the San Joaquin Valley. Fresno County is the state’s largest garlic producer, with 30,000 acres, for an annual crop worth $175 million. Christopher also farms another 400 acres in Monterey County, 30 miles to the east. The company is based in Gilroy.

Although much of the state’s crop is now grown in the San Joaquin Valley, the town’s commitment to garlic remains strong.

Shops in town sell products such as garlic jelly, garlic wine, garlic-stuffed olives and garlic ice cream. More people employed in Gilroy work with garlic--in farming, processing or retail sales--than any other industry.

Each year, Gilroy holds its garlic celebration on the last weekend in July. Crowds converge on Christmas Hill Park and stroll down the festival’s Gourmet Alley for shrimp scampi and pepper steak.

On this and every other weekend, visitors driving through the lush foothills of the Santa Clara Valley along U.S. 101 are greeted with the pungent aroma of the “stinking rose.”

Gilroy merchants say the state’s garlic crop has been plentiful this season.

“It’s gorgeous. It’s big and white, and we actually got it earlier this year,” said Heather Simpson, manager of the Garlic Festival Store on Main Street. “With ag products, there’s always something--rust or white rot. That’s farming. But we haven’t had any problems other than the rumors that there’s no garlic. It’s just media hype.”

Recent reports that Gilroy had no garlic this year elicited many phone calls and speculation that the annual festival would be canceled. That prompted the Garlic Festival office to issue a news release stating, “Recent reports emanating from nearby communities suggesting that the Garlic Capital of the World ‘Grows No Garlic’ are wildly exaggerated.”

“The ground in Gilroy simply just needs a rest,” Christopher said. “Then we can grow garlic here again. We plan to next year. . . . Like any [crop], problems occur when you plant too many crops in the same place year after year.”

Christopher Ranch’s crop in Fresno County has not been hit by white rot, which Christopher said is probably because of the valley’s intense heat. White rot in seeds can be killed by heating them to 120 degrees, which occurs naturally in the valley’s scorching summers.

But Christopher isn’t going to let white rot ruin his enjoyment of this year’s festival.

“I like to see happy people, and people who eat garlic are happy people,” he said.