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The famed Gilroy Garlic Festival, popular not only with residents of Northern California, but with owners of local dry cleaning establishments, will shoulder on despite not having any actual locally grown garlic.

People enjoying the Gilroy Garlic Festival Saturday may not know that while the garlic may seem plentiful the area's garlic farms are disappearing.

Only three growers remain in Santa Clara County because of land-use pressure, economics and plant disease.

Garlic farmer Louie Bonino's farm used to be 40 acres, but the small farmer's crop now only covers 10 acres.

The county's garlic production has fallen due to economic pressures that have sent farmers east to the San Joaquin Valley and to China, where labor is cheaper.

Local residents who complain that they will miss the site & smell of the lovely garlic flower that grows on the cities ancient garlic trees, are reminded that they live only 45 minutes from Andersen's Pea Soup in lovely Santa Nella. "For those who miss the smell of garlic, be reminded that on a cool summer's day, when the wind is just right, the smell of pea will still fill our valley and arouse our senses."

Andersen's Pea Soup, in response, said that they are proud to represent the area with their famously undistinguished & mediocre green pea soup. "We do one thing," the founder of Andersen's pea soup once said, "and we do not do it well."