About

Sundries Farm sits above the Snake River in Idaho's Hagerman Valley. A unique wonder, Hagerman Valley has thousands of springs that burble out of the lava rim rock, bringing life to one of the nation's aquaculture hotbeds. The springs stay ice-free year-round, attracting millions of migrating waterfowl and bringing life to the fertile farmlands along the Snake River. The soil in this area is an ancient floodplain-rich volcanic loam, perfect for garlic!

Ducks and geese filled the sky as Jillian and Robert, a husband and wife team, drove their 1970 Volkswagen bus through Hagerman Valley. Jillian screamed, "What a beautiful place! Let's  move here!" And so they did, selling their home in Eastern Idaho and moving to the land they now call Sundries Farm. 

Robert

Robert has always loved growing and taking care of animals and plants. As a youngster, his Dad read him "Farmer Boy" by Laura Ingalls Wilder. In that story, Almanzo grows a monster pumpkin by feeding it fresh milk, which he injects into the vine. That's all it took for Robert to become obsessed with gardening. And his main quest was growing monster pumpkins. He grew some enormous pumpkins but never got the milk IV to function correctly.

Robert ended up going to school to study environmental science. Shortly after he and Jillian were married, he took a job in Parker, Arizona, running a remote research and grow-out facility for endangered fish found in the Colorado River. Robert became an expert on Colrado's native fish. He successfully reared hundreds of thousands of threatened and endangered Bonytail Chubs while figuring out how to garden in Arizona's extreme heat.

For over 15 years, Robert was a Smokejumper with the United States Department of Agriculture. He traveled all over the Western U.S. and parachuted into remote wildfires to put them out. 

While on a Smokejumper assignment in New Mexico, he first became intrigued by growing garlic. He wanted to utilize Sundries Farm better and researched plants that could accommodate his busy summer fire season. The planting schedule for garlic is in late fall - a perfect match for his busy summer schedule. 

Garlic is similar to grape vines. The seed adapts to the environment and takes on its terroir, unique to where it is propagated. This intrigued Robert. After six years of planting and replanting his selection of seed garlic, always holding back the best to replant,   Robert has found his adult "giant, milk-fed pumpkin" by growing the biggest and best garlic available! 

Welcome to Sundries Farm Garlic!     

Jillian grew up in the Canadian bush. She and Robert met in New Zealand, and after writing each other a thousand letters, they eloped and began their life together in Alaska. This is where they started their gardening career, growing a good many things. Most notable were their prize-worthy bell peppers grown in an outhouse — you work with what you have!

Jillian gladly immigrated to the United States of America and invented herself as an independent, full-time, working artist — she is a silversmith, photographer, and published writer. Her life and work revolve around core values: independence, food sovereignty, creativity, sustainability, freedom, and personal responsibility. 

She believes our health and wellness are rooted in the quality of our food, our connection to that food, our gratitude for that food, and our stewardship of the land that brings that food forth.