Growing Spring Garlic

2023 Author: Douglas Hoggarth | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-11-26 20:16

• What is the difference between spring garlic and winter garlic
• Cooking seed
• Choosing a place for organizing garlic beds
• Planting spring garlic
• Garlic garden care
• Harvesting

Spring garlic is an unpretentious crop that, with a minimal investment of time and effort, can give a bountiful harvest. The main thing is to accurately follow simple agricultural techniques, to choose the right varieties for your region.

What is the difference between spring garlic and winter garlic

In addition to the timing of planting and harvest time, spring garlic differs from winter garlic in the structure of the bulb. A winter crop has a trunk in the center of the head, and if the bulb is disassembled into cloves, this trunk will remain. The heads of spring garlic do not have a trunk inside.

One of the main advantages of spring varieties is that the harvest is much better stored, however, the requirements for lighting, watering and soil nutrition are much higher.

The most popular varieties of spring garlic are:

1. Gulliver.
2. Leningradsky.
3. Aleisky.

We talked in more detail about the characteristics of each of them in the article "How to grow and preserve the harvest of garlic."

You should be aware that spring garlic does not adapt very well to new environmental conditions, therefore it is recommended to grow local varieties adapted specifically for your conditions, information about which can be obtained in specialized retail outlets, or from gardeners who grow garlic at a professional level.

Cooking seed

Proper seed preparation when growing spring garlic is an important step for good yields.

Healthy teeth are selected for planting, preferably large ones. If there is not a lot of seed, then you can use seeds of medium and small size, but they should be planted separately, since the ripening time in this case will be different. Large teeth ripen much earlier than small ones. Therefore, before landing, the heads are disassembled, calibrating them in size.

After that, it is recommended to subject the seeds to the vernalization process, that is, to keep them for a certain time at low above-zero temperatures. For this, the selected seed is placed in a refrigerator or dry cellar in early February, kept at a temperature of plus one to three degrees for 20-25 days.

Tip: before vernalization, the seeds should be soaked for two hours in a light pink warm solution of potassium permanganate or in an ash solution at the rate of a tablespoon with a mountain of wood ash per liter of water. Practice shows that if this is not done, then the heads will not be large.

Choosing a place for organizing garlic beds

For garlic beds, you should choose a well-lit area with nutritious light sandy loam or loamy soils of neutral acidity. As we have already said, spring garlic, unlike winter garlic, is very demanding on light and nutrition.

If the groundwater in your area is high, it is recommended to plant the garlic in ridges raised 15–20 centimeters above the ground level to avoid the development of various diseases resulting from waterlogging.

Fertile beds, on which cucumbers, pumpkins, and zucchini were previously grown, are best suited for planting spring garlic.

Attention! You cannot plant this crop where onions or potatoes grew last year, since the diseases and pests of these plants are the same.

If there is not enough space on the site, you do not need to make special beds for growing spring garlic, but plant it next to other crops. Strawberries, tomatoes, raspberries, gooseberries, black currants, cucumbers, roses, gladioli - garlic not only does not interfere with these plants, but also helps protect against various diseases and pests (caterpillars, borers, slugs, moles, black and brown spot).

Attention! Garlic should not be planted next to peas, beans and cabbage, as it releases special substances that inhibit the growth of these crops.

Planting spring garlic

At the beginning of March, if the snow has already melted, and the soil has dried out a little, the area allotted for planting garlic is dug up to 20-30 cm, bringing in humus, if possible (a bucket of 1-1.5 sq. M.) And a little wood ash (one liter can for 1 sq. m).

Plant the seeds into the soil as early as possible. It is very important to be in time before the time when a warm spring is established, since the root system of spring garlic develops best in soil, the temperature of which is not higher than 5-10 degrees. At a temperature of 18–20 degrees, root development slows down significantly.

On the day of disembarkation, grooves are made at a distance of 15–20 cm from each other. Chives are planted in them to a depth of 5 cm, the distance between the cloves is 5 centimeters. Do not press the teeth into the soil when planting, this can delay the growth and development of the root system.

After that, the beds are mulched. It is best to use rotted horse manure for this, it is considered an ideal fertilizer for garlic. If this is not possible, you can mulch the planting with straw, hay, dry foliage.

Garlic garden care

After the emergence of shoots, it is recommended to feed the beds with an infusion of a non-concentrated mullein, which is prepared as follows: a bucket is one-third filled with manure and filled with water to the very top, infused for a week. This fermented infusion is then used to prepare a liquid fertilizer at the rate of half a liter per bucket of water. Ten days after the first feeding, the second is carried out.

Further, the main care of the beds will be loosening and removing weeds. Moreover, if your garden bed is well mulched, then there will be few weeds on it, and you don't really need to loosen it.

During May-July, the soil should be kept moist. If it does not rain, the garlic beds are watered every five to six days.

Harvesting

Spring garlic is harvested after the leaves of the lower tier are completely dry, or when the leaves in the upper tier turn yellow and lodge. This happens, as a rule, in late August - mid September. The optimal harvest time in this case is the period from August 25 to September 15.

Dig the garlic in clear dry weather, digging in the onion and pulling it out of the soil by the tops. After that, the crop is laid out in the garden for drying. When the heads are dry, they are cleaned of dirt and transferred to a well-ventilated, bright room. After a week, you should cut off the roots, tops, then dry well for 10-12 days, then put it in storage.

Spring garlic, unlike winter garlic, is perfectly stored both in warm and cold rooms. A popular storage method is braided garlic braids, which are hung in the kitchen - this is not only convenient, but also beautiful.

You can store garlic by pouring the heads into wicker breathable baskets or boxes, in cold, dry rooms at temperatures from + 2 to 0 ° C. The main thing in this case is that the storage place is well ventilated and not damp.