Hello!

 

Welcome to The Garlic Farm, the UK garlic specialists.

We've been growing garlic on the Isle of Wight for 30 years.

The Garlic Farm today

With our dedicated team at the farm in Newchurch on the Isle of Wight, we grow 60 acres of garlic - that's about 2.5 million bulbs- including up to 20 different varieties. We are proud to say that our garlic tastes fantastic and also keeps very well, unlike some garlic you will find in supermarkets. We also produce 40 different garlic products from very unique pickle and chutney creations to the very best garlic butter and garlic bread you'll ever find.

Our Garlic Farm Shop welcomes thousands of visitors each year, not only to shop for garlic and eat in our beautiful farm cafe but also to learn more about growing garlic, our farm and our natural environment and heritage in our Education and Heritage Centres.

You can find our garlic and related products in our shop, on-line, at farmers markets and through independent retailers across the country. Garlic Farm products are not available in supermarkets*.

Thanks to our new Education and Heritage Centres, we are now able to welcome schools, groups and businesses to make the most of our beautiful facilities at the farm for learning, activities, relaxation and celebrations. We have very fine accommodation on-site in our converted farm barns and cottages for up to 35 people.

We hope you will enjoy visiting us on the Isle of Wight if you are able to and in the meantime, we welcome you to browse all our products in our on-line shop. We welcome feedback so please contact us if you have any questions or comments on any of our products or any garlic related issues!

How it all started: a brief history of The Garlic Farm

It all began in the 1950s when Norah and Martin Boswell arrived on the Isle of Wight to establish their first small mixed farm. We've come a long way since then and we are now the UK's only specialist garlic grower with an annual garlic crop of 60 acres (about 2.5 million bulbs.) Colin Boswell, the garlic farmer and owner of the farm, tells the story...

Arriving on the Isle of Wight

The Boswell family moved to the Isle of Wight in the 1950s because, at the time, land was cheaper here and, importantly for a young farmer like my father, there were farms to take on as a tenant. My father began with a dairy herd, pigs and numerous different intensive cash crops which were trialled every year. Sweetcorn was particularly successful and Mersley Farm (as it was known then) became for a time the UK's largest sweetcorn producer.

The first garlic crop

At the same time, my mother was experimenting with various crops in her kitchen garden and during the very hot summers of 1975 and 1976 she happened to grow some garlic which produced remarkable white glistening bulbs. In the meantime, I had finished University, and after some years in advertising and market research in London, came back to the Island with my wife Jenny to join the business. Since we needed to get another crop into production to expand the business, we decided to grow our first commercial crop of garlic. We never looked back. By 1990 we were supplying most of the major UK supermarkets with garlic grown on the Isle of Wight. We quickly found that from our Isle of Wight production were could supply only a fraction of the garlic required for what eventually amounted to 70% of the UK garlic market, so we imported from growers in Spain, California, South America and Hungary.

Big business

The business grew fast through the 1980s and 1990s as Mersley Farms (as it was then called) continued to supply most of the country with garlic and sweetcorn grown here on the Isle of Wight and supplemented with imported crops from all over the world. While our business was mostly thriving at this time, the down side was that the large supermarkets came to dominate the scene and to dictate the life and values of those who supplied them. Mersley Farms fell victim to these pressures, as many farms have done, and eventually we were forced to find a way out.

Back to basics: 'The Garlic Farm' is born

In 1999 we sold the business that supplied the supermarkets and returned to our roots as growers of our own quality garlic. We opted for selling direct to consumers at farmers' markets, through farm shops and small independent delicatessens across the country, completely avoiding any trade with supermarkets. We have been very lucky throughout our recent history as 'The Garlic Farm' to have a very dedicated core of loyal and hard working people who have shared our vision for the farm. Over the last 12 years we have grown, bulb by bulb, into a thriving specialist garlic business.


* our products are stocked by a couple of local stores on the Isle of Wight but otherwise Garlic Farm products are not stocked by major supermarket chains.