Originally Posted By: Malo83
Love driving thru Gilroy,Ca. on Hwy152, the smell of garlic being processed is to die for, Gilroy has to be the garlic capitol in Cali, their annual Garlic Festival is heaven, anything and everything made with garlic can be tasted and bought
http://gilroygarlicfestival.com/
I don't know if you can really smell it being processed. Once I was driving through on the last day of the Gilroy Garlic Festival and certainly the smell of cooked garlic was apparent from 101.
Still - there's a misconception that Gilroy is where most California garlic comes from. I buy from places that specifically state where the garlic comes from. Sometimes it says just "California" while other times it says "Gilroy" or "Christopher Ranch", which is the largest grower in the Gilroy area. Over 90% of garlic grown in California is from the San Joaquin Valley portion of the Central Valley. I've seen open trailers that were loaded with garlic on I-5. They often go to Gilroy, which has a huge garlic processing infrastructure as well as a center for packaging and delivery. They even process imported garlic from China there.
Quote:
http://www.ipmcenters.org/cropprofiles/docs/CAgarlic.pdf
Principal California garlic producing counties, grouped by region.
The San Joaquin Valley region grew 91% the harvested garlic acreage in 1997.
The western San Joaquin Valley, which includes the counties of Fresno and Kern, represents 96.5% of the total state garlic acres. Fresno County represents the majority of these acres with 86% and Kern County grows 12.5%. Some garlic is grown in the Southeast desert counties of Riverside and San Bernadino counties. Lassen and Siskiyou counties in northern California and Mono county in the eastern Sierras produce a small amount of garlic, which is used mainly for seed. In the Central Coastal Region, primarily around Gilroy and Hollister,, some garlic is still grown, but the area now serves primarily as the center for fresh market shippers and dehydrators who still have their facilities located in this area. At one time, this was the original garlic-growing center of California.