Garlic is king in Dave Cornell's garden.
Sure, he grows a wide range of other crops such as asparagus, tomatoes, green beans and rhubarb, but garlic is his primary focus - 3000 plants covering 13 different varieties.
While Dave has been an avid gardener for 40 years, it was only 20 years ago that he started growing garlic and that was just as a lark to see if he could do it. He had been moose hunting with some buddies when the topic turned to growing garlic and Dave took up the challenge of seeing if he could grow it.
"It started out as a hobby and turned into an obsession" is how Dave describes his two decades of growing garlic. Dave sells directly at farm gate as well as at the Eastern Ontario Garlic Festival held in Verona and the Lanark County Harvest Festival, located at Beckwith Park. His daughter Donna Chute uses his garlic to make jellies such as balsamic fig, cranberry onion and roasted garlic jellies - all marketed under the Ashton Station name.
The flavours of the individual varieties range from mild to strong, some bulbs contain many cloves, others have fewer but larger cloves. "I specialize in the hotter varieties of garlic," Cornell says, stating that this is where the market is these days.
Growing garlic on the scale that Dave does is virtually a full time job during the growing season because of the weeding, watering and fertilizing involved. Dave is a passionate organic gardener and while he is not certified, he does everything organically. He has four compost bins which provides him with compost. He also uses sheep manure and bone meal for fertilizer as well as grass clippings for mulch. 
Dave's customers keep coming back he says because quality sells and also because they want organically grown garlic. He says that his garlic has a much deeper and distinctive taste than what is generally sold in stores. Taste is the key, Cornell says. If customers like to eat the garlic, then they will be back to buy more of it.
But he is adamant that the garlic he sells must be quality, no matter how much work is involved. This can mean working in the summer heat for up to 8 or 10 hours a day. There is a lot of hand labour involved.
"Go quality or go home," Dave says.