Garlic is considered a popular vegetable plant among many peoples of the world. Its fame is due to the sharp aroma and peculiar taste. This culture is indispensable in cooking, so amateur gardeners constantly plant and cultivate it in their beds. Due to its strong antiseptic effect, the plant is also widely used in medicine. As a rule, garlic is planted with seeds and cloves.
Types of culture
In nature, there are two forms of such a vegetable, among them spring (non-shooting) and winter (shooting and non-shooting). Varieties that do not give the arrow can be bred only with cloves, and those who shoot at the beginning of summer eject a flower-bearing ovary from the middle of the bulb, in which the bulbs (even up to 50 pieces) and flowers form simultaneously. Such formations are similar to bulbous teeth.
When to plant garlic seeds
This plant differs from other crops also in that it can be planted both in autumn and spring. In the first version it is called winter, and in the second - spring. In cold countries, vegetables are mostly planted in autumn, and in hot countries in spring. In the first case, the teeth are deepened into the soil already slightly germinated. Spring planting should be done as soon as possible. Ideally, the soil should not dry after the snow melts. Only in this case, you can get quite large heads.
Growing vegetables from the cloves
This method is the most famous. And how to grow garlic from seeds? To do this, first of all, you should choose the right location. The best beds for crops are considered to be beds after legumes, cucumbers and cabbage, and the worst after potatoes and onions. Plant a garlic plant in the same place is advised only after 3-4 years.
Before planting in the ground, you will need to make fertilizing (rotted manure or compost). You need to do this in the fall. Then you need to prepare the bulbs, review them well, remove the damaged ones and separate them. This is carried out right before landing. A vegetable is planted about a month before persistent cold weather. This should be done so that the culture has time to take root, but does not give growth.
How to plant plants
To plant garlic seeds in the future was successful, you need to prepare the beds in a week. This is done so that the soil does not have time to sink (in moist soil, the teeth will settle very deeply). The interval between the teeth should be at least 8-10 cm, the space between the lines should be 40-50 cm. After planting, it is ideal to fill the ground with sawdust or peat, so the vegetable will better survive the frost. However, if the winter is warm and not very harsh, you can do without powder.
Spring planting is not much different from winter: only an approximate depth of 5 cm, and the distance between rows - 25-30 cm.
Care
The cultivation of garlic from seeds occurs without abundant, especially daily watering. Its frequency is 1 time in 6-7 days. The first watering along with fertilizer is carried out at the end of April or with the onset of May. The second top dressing is done in June, and 2-3 weeks before harvesting, top dressing must be completed.
When arrows are formed on the vegetable (some of them are allowed to be stored for seeds), they need to be removed. Moreover, this should be done carefully so as not to spoil the vegetable. Do not forget about timely weeding, because garlic, like any plant, loves freedom. Therefore, weeds should not be on the ridges.
How to grow a seed crop
To plant garlic with seeds (bulbs) is considered one of the best ways to get high-quality seed raw materials, free from various diseases of the vegetable. Some even specially cultivate bulbs to have one big clove. To grow them, you can resort to one of two methods: plant in spring or winter. By and large, the effect will be the same, except that the winter bulbs will be slightly larger.
How to prepare for landing
First of all, you need to understand how best to get the expected onions. First you need to shorten the arrows of the winter plant, only so that they are well ripened. The vegetable itself emerges in March, and the numerous formation of arrows occurs by the end of May.
Cutting off the arrows is most correct with the advent of June, since this is an ideal period for the seeds of winter garlic to grow freely, and the culture itself should be larger in size. To get high-quality bulbs, arrows should be cut off somewhere near the end of June, after the 20th. By this period, the film, under which the air bulbs are formed, will dry out and crack - this is a sign for removing stems. At the end, you will need to dry them thoroughly in the shade. Buns can be stored for 2 years without losing their qualities.
How to plant garlic seeds from arrows
Before the onset of sowing, air bulbs must be removed from the inflorescence, choosing the largest. Sowing should be done from September 7 to October 15. In July next year, a large-volume single-tooth is formed from all the bulbs, which will be an excellent seedling for planting crops in the winter so that large bulbs can be grown.
First, you should create beds for growing vegetables from bulbs about 12-15 cm in height and up to 90 cm in width. Soil is prepared in this order:
- per 1 sq. m add 3-4 kg of humus or compost and 1 tbsp. l superphosphate;
- dig and level everything on the ridges;
- then opposite the beds to make tracks to a depth of 3-4 cm;
- the intervals between the recesses should be 10 cm;
- bulbs must be placed in the groove in the interval of 1-2 cm from one another;
- then you need to cover the tracks with soil and leave it for the whole winter.
If there is a harsh winter, it is possible to mulch the beds with sawdust with a layer of 2-3 cm. With the advent of spring, when the ground thaws, the sawdust should be removed. Now, many probably already understood when to plant garlic seeds.
Care
So that the plant does not freeze and does not rot, enough snow should be present on the ridges in the winter. If the winter was not snowy, you will need to scoop up snow with a shovel in the garden with a vegetable. Then in the spring, as soon as the snow melts, the seedlings of the culture will immediately appear.
If there is almost no rain in spring, you need to water the garlic. A young plant also needs fertilizers, after which it is mandatory to cultivate it. The vegetable should be fed the first time with nitrophos (15 g per 1 sq. M.) In mid-April, the second fertilizer - with ammophos (the same dosage), is introduced in June, at the stage of onion development.
To finish watering the crop is required 3 weeks before the harvest. In June, it will be necessary to cut off the arrows from the plant that lower the yield. This must be done when its height reaches 5-8 cm. The arrows should not be pulled out, but carefully broken out under the third leaf so as not to damage the seeds of winter garlic.
Taking into account the excellent bactericidal characteristics of the vegetable, it can be planted next to other plants to prevent their diseases.
Harvesting
Dig the bulbs after ¾ parts of the inner leaves are wilted. Winter crops, as a rule, ripen by the end of July. Dig up the vegetable after the main area of the lower leaves turns yellow. To check in advance, it is necessary to remove 2-3 heads of garlic from the soil. Bulbs should be sufficiently developed and solid. Harvesting is carried out with a pitchfork, prying out a lump of soil with the plant and pulling it out with the hand.
Digged vegetables must be laid for several hours along the length of the bed for drying. Trimming leaves is not worth it so that you can plant garlic seeds next year. Arrows present should be cut off. And the leaves themselves are shortened after drying.
In a culture intended for use in food, roots are removed. Experienced gardeners believe that it is more correct not to contain a plant in the ground than to overexpose. It’s just that the unripe bulbs can absolutely ripen even after uprooting, while the overripe ones fall apart into the teeth and remain much worse.
Principles of growing vegetables
When to plant garlic seeds, now many have understood. However, you need to find out exactly how to grow the culture so that it gives a generous crop. There are some useful tips for this:
1. First of all, cultivate good bulbs. For these purposes, arrows are left on some plants grown from the largest cloves. The remaining stems should be broken off without fail to increase the volume of garlic heads. Left arrows are initially twisted into a spiral. They will expand individually, and the final straightening will signal the readiness of the crop.
By collection we mean the heads of the vegetable and the bulb. When harvesting, the culture is safe. The shoot is pulled into a bundle and hanged in the attic to dry for 3-4 weeks. Plastic substances from the leaves and processes come to the bulbs and bulb, expanding their volume. After drying, the bulb heads must be divided so that the cover is not damaged. If it is broken, then it will be impossible to plant garlic seeds later.
2. The correct seating of the bulbs. They can be planted both in autumn and spring. If you plan to plant in the spring season, you need to prepare the beds from the fall, as it will be very difficult to dig them up in April.
During the autumn planting of bulbs, there is a chance of freezing part of the grains, others may be on the surface. Such seeds are squeezed out by frost. In spring, they need to be recessed back into the soil. During the spring sowing season, a frequent problem will be the drying out of some places of the bulbs, and planting garlic with seeds in the future will not be easy. After all, it will be very important how the bulbs were preserved in the winter.
Before sowing, they are sorted into grains and kept at a temperature of no more than +5 degrees for 1-1.5 months. For this, a refrigerator will do. Otherwise, the vegetables will turn green, and also continue to form until the end of autumn.
3. Harvest on time. They dig up the garlic when its leaves begin to turn yellow. This happens around mid-August. The vegetable itself is dried for 3-4 days in the sun, protecting from dew. Then the plant is connected in bunches, drying in the attic. One tooth will be a wonderful planting material for the fall and will be gifted with a crop in the form of large heads.
Thus, we can safely take up the planting of this useful vegetable. After all, everyone already knows when to sow garlic seeds.