How to properly plant garlic before winter?

Did you obey your grandmother, who insisted that garlic helps against all diseases? Modern research confirms this: spicy cloves, used regularly, significantly reduce the frequency of acute respiratory infections and acute respiratory viral infections, help maintain youth, and so on.

It's time to grow your own winter garlic. Why winter? It ripens much faster than the spring one, its teeth and heads are larger, and it often wins in taste. Check out our article, where we will tell you in detail about the intricacies of planting garlic in the fall before winter. Grandma approves.

After which crops are garlic planted

Gardeners have long noticed that vegetable crops grow poorly if they are planted in one place every season. Plants pick out the same minerals from the soil that they need to grow.

Crop rotation rules help to avoid such negative moments - not only to grow a rich harvest, but also to improve and saturate the soil with useful substances.

Optimal precursors for garlic

The best precursors to garlic are cereals. These plants are also called siderates, they improve the chemical composition of the soil, have a positive effect on its fertility.

Their leaves and stems are excellent organic fertilizers. The roots loosen and bind the earth, moisture and oxygen penetrate much better. The exception to the rule is barley and oats, after which you cannot plant garlic.

Garlic crop rotation rules

Then the garlic is planted:

• mustard;
• cereals;
• zucchini;
• cucumbers;
• squash;
• cabbage;
• berry bushes.

By the way! If there is not enough space on the site, you can plant garlic in the aisles of strawberries. This will not harm the plants, they get along well side by side, nutrition in the soil will be enough for both crops.

What is being planted after garlic:

• greens (parsley, dill);
• salads;
• early potatoes;
• in warm regions (otherwise they do not have time to ripen) beans or early ripening cucumbers.

Important! Gardeners also use this method. After harvesting the garlic, mustard, buckwheat, alfalfa, peas, - any siderates are sown in its place. It is necessary to mow the grass before flowering, the mowing is left in the beds, which are dug up before winter. The soil becomes more fertile.

How to choose planting material

When deciding on a variety, it is necessary to take into account the climatic zone and observe several simple rules for the selection of suitable seeds.

Seed selection rules

High-quality planting material is the key to a good harvest. We select seeds according to the following criteria:

• the cloves for planting should be taken from such heads that have matured well and dried out for storage;
• all the teeth should be healthy, even a slight rot or mold on one of them indicates a problem, the seeds from such a bulb are not suitable.

Seeds from degenerating garlic will also not yield a full harvest. Degeneration is evidenced by the following signs:

• there are few cloves in the bulb and they are large;
• the size of the cloves varies significantly;
• the teeth are spliced ​​together or have two tips.

Preferences when choosing a variety

Garlic grows best for your climate zone.Therefore, harvest the seeds yourself or buy at your local store: the best planting material grown within a radius of one hundred kilometers from your garden plot.

Purple striped varieties are preferred. They are less whimsical and better tolerate low temperatures. You can plant several varieties on the site and determine which one is best.

Interesting! Large farms prefer spring garlic over winter. The fact is that the lion's share of varieties for planting in winter is creeping garlic. It is not difficult to get rid of arrows in a small garden; it is expensive to remove them from a large plantation.

Popular varieties of garlic

Let's consider the main characteristics of common varieties of garlic. It should be remembered that the timing of autumn planting depends on the specific region.

How to prepare the soil for planting garlic before winter

The planting scheme for winter garlic begins with choosing a place. This should be a dry, well-lit area that does not accumulate snow.

After you have decided on the place, you need to fertilize and dig up. This bulbous plant needs nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium for good growth and development. To provide the soil with the necessary microelements, we apply fertilizers.

Planting garlic immediately after fertilizing and digging is not worth it. The soil will be loose and after a couple of rains, it will settle, pulling deeper and planted cloves. This will certainly affect on yield, because garlic will have to make its way to the sun longer.

We fertilize the beds

Garlic beds are prepared in August-September. It is best to improve the soil for this as follows:

• a square meter of sandy soil needs a bucket of peat, two buckets of clay soil;
• 1 m² of clay soil will need a bucket of loamy soil and sand;
• a bucket of peat and sand is applied to 1 m² of clay soil.

To enrich any type of soil with minerals, organic compounds are used. The following substances are introduced per square meter:

• wood ash - 2 tablespoons;
• chalk - 1 glass;
• humus - 10 kg;
• superphosphate - 1 tablespoon;
• potassium sulfate - 1 tablespoon.

We distribute all this evenly on the site, dig up a shovel on the bayonet and leave it for a while so that the earth subsides. If there is little or no rainfall, you need to shed the prepared area yourself.

Experienced gardeners advise to do one more event before planting. It will protect plants from fungal attack. An antifungal agent is prepared as follows:

• copper sulfate - 1 salt spoon;
• hot water - 2 l;
• cold water - 1 bucket.

Vitriol is dissolved in hot water, then diluted with cold water. A garden bed is spilled with this composition, usually it is enough for 2 square meters. m. After the procedure, the ridge is covered with a foil before planting the garlic.

Read also:

Onion or hairstyle onion - what is Rocambol garlic.

How to preserve garlic for the winter is tasty and simple?

How and when to plant winter garlic

Let's figure out how to properly plant garlic in the winter. The culture feels great on a ridge one meter wide and 20-25 centimeters high.

After the shrinkage of the ridge, you can go directly to the landing. It is recommended to scatter urea 10-20 g / m² over the area and spill the ground with water.

Beginners ask: "When to plant garlic before winter?" Pick up time depends on the weather conditions in your area. Optimally - a month and a half before the first frost.

Rules for planting garlic in the winter

It is advisable to process the seed before planting. Potassium permanganate (0.1% solution) or copper sulfate (1% solution) is suitable for this. The seeds are soaked in it a day before planting.

The cloves can be planted in grooves or holes. To make the grooves even, you can pull the rope on the pegs and draw along it. There should be a distance of 20-25 cm between the beds, and you need to lay the garlic in the furrows or make holes for it at a distance of 10 cm.

Planting depth of cloves

How deep should you plant the garlic? The depth of the holes or grooves for planting garlic varies from 5 to 15 cm, depending on climatic conditions. If your frost is strong, it is better to plant it deeper so that the teeth do not freeze. It is undesirable to deepen the garlic by pressing it, - this way the root system is formed longer and worse. After setting the cloves, grooves or holes are closed.

Following planting, many gardeners use soil mulching technology. This allows both to shelter winter crops from frost, and to improve the thermal insulation of the soil, and to reduce the growth of weeds. Dry foliage, needles, peat, spruce branches are used as mulch. The height of the covering layer should not exceed 10 cm.

Winter crop care

We examined the rules for planting garlic, now we will discuss subtleties of care... A culture planted before winter germinates early enough. Once the snow has melted, the protective cover is removed. The soil is loosened, fed and weeded.

Loosening

With this procedure, gardeners "close the moisture". It must be carried out not at a certain time, but depending on the condition of the soil. If you see that it turns from black to gray - it's time to loosen. Loosening is carried out after each heavy rain or watering.

Important! Don't be late with loosening. If you allow a crust of dense soil to form, it is more difficult to remove. Loosening will need to be deeper, and you will damage the delicate roots of young garlic.

Fertilizer

In order for the culture to form large heads, and the cloves to be tasty, the garlic must be fed. The first feeding is done a week after the snow melts. The second is after another two weeks. The third is carried out already at the beginning of June, when the head is actively forming. The third time, nitrogenous fertilizers should be avoided.

be careful! Failure to apply top dressing can backfire or go to waste. For example, garlic fed at the wrong time can begin to form abundant greenery, and the heads, on the contrary, will be small.

Varieties of dressings

There are quite a lot of types of mineral and organic compounds used for dressing. Let's talk more about some of them.

1. Ammonium nitrate - contains nitrogen (suitable for spring feeding), it is recommended to feed in spring with an interval of three weeks:
   • application - 15 mg of fertilizer per 10 liters of water;
   • consumption - 3l / 1m².
2. Urea - contains nitrogen (suitable for spring feeding):
   • application: 1 tbsp. l. fertilizers per 10 liters of water;
   • consumption - 3l / 1m².
3. Nitroammofoska - contains nitrogen, sulfur, potassium, phosphorus:
   • application for foliar feeding - 1 tbsp. l. fertilizers per 10 liters of water;
   • for root top dressing, the dose of fertilizer per 10 liters of water is doubled;
   • consumption - 3l / 1m².
4. Superphosphate, contains phosphorus:
   • application - 2 tbsp. l. fertilizers per 10 liters of water;
   • consumption - 4l / 1m².

Useful organics

1. Ash - contains potassium and phosphorus:
   • application - sprinkle it on the beds or prepare an infusion;
   • preparation - for 10 liters of water 0.5 liters of ash, leave for 24 hours, add at the root.
2. Yeast - contain important amino acids:
   • application - garlic is poured with a solution;
   • preparation - dissolve 200 g of yeast in 1 liter of water, leave for a day, bring to 10 liters.
3. Ammonia - contains a lot of nitrogen:
   • application - garlic feathers are treated with a solution (it is also used for watering the soil, but before planting plants);
   • preparation - for 10 liters of water 25 ml of ammonia.

Irrigation scheme

Garlic does not like watering too much, but dry weather does not contribute to its proper growth... Remember to cover the moisture after watering.

The plant watering scheme is as follows:

• rainy, cloudy - no need to water;
• hot, dry - watering every five days;
• moderately hot, with occasional rainfall - watering every 7-10 days.

Do not forget! In arrow-headed garlic, it is necessary to remove the arrow-inflorescence even before its flowering, since the plant will give all its strength to its growth and development, and the head and cloves will be small.

Harvesting and storage

The ripening rate of garlic depends on the variety and climatic conditions. But most often it "fits" in 100 days. The crop is harvested in late July or early August. To understand how ripe the spicy cloves are, you need to know a few rules that experienced gardeners use.

The simplest thing is to leave the inflorescences in one or two plants of arrowhead garlic. The arrow is straightened, and the inflorescences have opened - the crop is ready for harvesting. Also, withered all or only the lower leaves and stem testify to ripeness.

It's easy to find out if the garlic is ripe by simply digging out a couple of heads. The husk on them should be dry, the slices are even, elastic, separating without effort.

How to keep the harvest

It is important not to overexpose the garlic in the ground or harvest it too early. It is optimal to dig it up a couple of days before it is fully ripe. It will mature during the drying process. It is also impossible to damage the fruits by pulling them out of the ground - the spicy culture must be dug up. It is forbidden to hit the ground that is not adhered to garlic, for example, on a shovel, it is better to clean it with your hands. The damaged slices will quickly start to rot.

Garlic is dried in the shade outside or in a well-ventilated room. It is useful to dry it together with the foliage, heads down: useful substances penetrate from the greens into the bulb, which qualitatively affects its taste and benefits. For long-term storage, select undamaged heads completely covered with husks. Onions covered with three layers of husk are best stored.

Dried garlic is stored in a dark place at t ° -2 ... + 2 C ° and humidity no more than 80%. Cellar, basement will do. The heads are stored in braids, placed in cardboard boxes or plywood boxes. For storage in apartments, garlic is most often put in jars whole or in slices, keeping the shell.

The bulbous plant is laid in a clean, dried container, sprinkled with flour, onion husks, expanded vermiculite or ash. Peeled slices are also stored in oil or embedded in paraffin. Ordinary sterile jars rolled up with metal lids are also suitable. They also use cloth bags soaked in salt. Or you can freeze or dry the spice.

Conclusion

Garlic is a seasoning known for more than one millennium. It is famous for its taste and benefits, contains many essential vitamins and minerals. It is easy to grow it, especially in winter. Winter garlic is larger and tastier than spring garlic. It is enough to give it a little time and attention.

For garlic to delight you with a bountiful harvest, follow our advice: consider the crop rotation, prepare the soil, water, loosen and feed the sprouted garlic. Air dry after cleaning. And store at humidity no more than 80%.