Hate it or love it...garlic is a part of everyday life. The Madras - Culver area is ripe with a great garlic crop this year, and this is very good news for farm families and field workers. Brian Jones, Field Manager with Olam Spices and Vegetables, one of the companies who purchase garlic from our local growers, says he feared the late spring and summer was going to damage the crop for the second year: “As it turned out, the bulb formation, the clove formation is excellent this year. It’s as good as we've seen in the last 10 or 15 years. So I’m real happy with it. We’ll see how it does when we put it in a box, in about 2 weeks or so." Jones says there are about 20 farms employing hundreds of people that are ready for the harvest. He says they couldn't be happier with the forecast, considering last years disastrous crop due to a deep freeze over several days.