How to grow large winter garlic? This question worries every gardener who wants to get a high-quality and high yield when planting a widely distributed and beloved product.
Grow as an annual crop
Garlic is a perennial crop that can grow in one place for several years. This constancy pleases, if not for one “but”. The bulbs under these growing conditions will be small, and the teeth will not please the size. To obtain a commercial presentation crop, one should know several subtleties of agricultural technology, an important component of which is the cultivation of garlic in an annual crop. How to grow large winter garlic?
Unlike spring, winter garlic is more frost-resistant and is characterized by high productivity. He has large teeth evenly spaced around the stem. Shelf life is an order of magnitude less than that of spring, with a maximum until spring. Therefore, it is recommended to grow two types of garlic on the site: winter - for winter pickles and conservation and spring - for long-term consumption.
Location
An important factor in the quality growth of garden crops and the production of large bulbs is properly selected soil for winter garlic. For garlic, the most comfortable are sandy and loamy lands, without the close presence of groundwater. The site should be well lit, as in the shade the plant will grow weak and depleted. The best precursors for such a culture are cabbage, cucumbers, pumpkin.
Planting Material Requirements
How to determine the timing of planting winter garlic? Planting winter garlic is best done at the end of September – October, trying to catch it at least a couple of weeks before the first frost. During this time, garden culture manages to take root, but not to grow. If the optimal planting dates for winter garlic are maintained, then we can safely hope for a quality crop of next year.
How to grow large winter garlic? You should know the size of the bulbs of the future crop depends on the condition of the planting material. It should be beautiful large bulbs, without dents, rot, cracks, about the same size.
Planting of winter garlic in the Moscow Region is carried out according to the following algorithm: first, the bulbs should be sorted into cloves without cleaning the outer shell, since these manipulations will negatively affect the shelf life of the future crop. Then make a landing. With ordinary cloves, you can plant air bulbs collected in the summer from arrows. In the first year, whole heads will grow out of them (like onions), and in a year - regular ones, consisting of several slices.
Site preparation
The key to obtaining a quality crop will be the preparation of the site, which is recommended to start 1-1.5 weeks before the planting of winter garlic in the Moscow region.
Therefore, you should take care of fertilizing the soil. Before planting winter garlic, the soil should be fed 5-6 kg of humus, 10-12 g of ammonium nitrate, 30 g of superphosphate and 20 g of potassium salt per 1 sq. square meter. It is not recommended to introduce fresh manure, which causes an increased concentration of nitrogen in the soil. The most comfortable temperature for growing winter garlic is +18 ... + 25 ° C with its ability to withstand -40 ° C in winter.
Landing Features
How to plant winter garlic? With the onset of planting dates, prepared garlic cloves should be planted in rows, adhering to an interval of 10-12 cm. The row spacing is 20-25 cm. The planting depth should be double the height of the clove. With a shallow plant, it is likely that the plant will freeze, especially in cold, snowless winters. To avoid obstructing root growth, garlic cloves should not be pressed too hard into the ground.
A bed for winter garlic after planting needs a little compaction and subsequent cover with a layer of mulch (leaves, peat, sawdust, humus), on top of which it is desirable to place a spruce branch or straw. Such insulation materials trap snow, which is not only a shelter from frost, but also moisture, especially necessary in the spring.
Growing conditions
Winter garlic does not require any excessive care. For high-quality growth, it is enough to carry out several main events in a timely manner: watering, weeding, loosening. If the soil is fertile, you can do without fertilizing. With increased acidity, it is recommended to sprinkle the beds with ash.
While the plants are young and immature, weeds can “clog” them, take away the necessary nutrition and light. Therefore, it is recommended to carry out regular weeding. A little later, simple loosening with simultaneous removal of grass, to which garlic responds with good growth, is enough, since it does not like compacted soil.
Watering
Care should be taken when watering. With a lack of moisture, garlic leaves begin to turn yellow and dry ahead of time. With an excess of water, the appearance of rot, the deterioration of the taste of the teeth and the acquisition of water content by them are possible, which will negatively affect the shelf life of the product. Watering should begin when spring moisture leaves the soil and be completed a month before harvesting. In the rest of the period - according to weather and needs. The day after watering, it is imperative to carry out loosening, which provides full oxygen access to the roots of the plant and the preservation of moisture. You can do without this operation if garlic is grown under mulch.
How to grow large winter garlic? As flower arrows appear, they should be broken. Several pieces can be left for seeds, as well as for peculiar “beacons”, by which it will be possible to determine the beginning of harvesting. Although the removal of the arrows delays the ripening of garlic, it positively affects the size of the bulbs. With the arrows left, the garlic heads will be small.
Diseases and Pests
Winter garlic, the cultivation and care of which does not cause much trouble, is often affected by pests and diseases, the causative agents of which are often stored in the soil. If sick heads are found during the harvesting process, soil improvement should be done.
The simplest method is to sow green manure (plants grown to inhibit the growth of weeds and subsequent incorporation into the soil in order to enrich it with nitrogen and improve the structure). As such plants, you can use mustard, calendula, marigold.
Do not be late for cleaning
Ripe winter garlic, the cultivation and care of which directly affects the quality of the crop, should be removed and dried in a timely manner. When predicting prolonged fall rains, it is recommended to dig up the garlic before they begin. It is better to remove the culture before the due date than to overexpose it in the garden. Otherwise, overripe heads will crumble, fall apart, and individual slices will not be able to be stored at all. They will only need to be recycled. With a quick rush to harvest, unripe garlic will quickly wither. It is better to clean the heads selectively, using for conservation for the winter, leaving the bulk to ripen to the correct harvest time.
Signs of ripening
How to determine the ripening of garlic? It is believed that a clear sign is yellowing of the leaves (about a quarter of the length from the apex). But this assumption may turn out to be erroneous, since the green mass can turn yellow for other reasons: from malnutrition, drought, disease, damage to the root system. You need to focus on the duration of the growing season, which is 100-110 days from the moment of emergence of young shoots.
Also, the maturity of garlic can be judged by its peduncles, "packed" in cases. A bursting shell will be a direct sign of garlic ripening.
To correctly determine the timing of the harvest, which is an important fact for its long-term storage, these methods should be considered in conjunction.
Winter garlic. Varieties
A particularly large of them is Lyubasha. Still vivid representatives of winter garlic are such varieties as Alkor, Parus, Belorussky, Gribovsky jubilee. These are the best varieties of winter garlic.
- Alcor is a high-yielding, rifle variety characterized by dense, pink-purple rounded bulbs. Frost resistant. The number of cloves in the bulb is 4-5, the average weight of the head is 13-36 g. It can become infected with the yellow dwarf virus, which is transmitted by several species of aphids. The affected plant is characterized by yellow curling arrows, densified by corrugated leaves with yellow stripes. Inflorescences cease to develop, and the plant itself becomes dwarf.
- Belorussian . A lingering variety of early ripening, with dense large bulbs dressed in dirty white flakes with a purple hue. Winter-hardy. The number of cloves is from 4 to 8. The average mass of the bulb is 56-78 g. Weak susceptibility to bacterial rot - a disease that destroys most of the garden product during storage. The presence of the disease can be determined by the presence of brown sores scattered randomly on the surface of the teeth. Also, garlic cloves may look frostbitten or boiled. The defeat occurs when grown on depleted soils, weakened by agrotechnical measures, insufficient maturation, incomplete drying, storage in the wrong conditions.
- Gribovsky anniversary . Shooting garlic with rounded bulbs, purple scales and dark purple streaks. It is characterized by high yields. Disease, drought, winter tolerance. In the bulb, the average mass of which is 24-44 g, contains from 5 to 10 cloves.
- Lyubasha . Particularly large. The average mass of the fetus is 80-120 g with the number of teeth from 5 to 7. Shoots. It is characterized by flat-round bulbs. The veins are blue-violet. Weakly expressed. Easily tolerates wintering. Resistant to Fusarium - a fungal disease that affects the plant during the growing season and storage. The main signs of the disease are yellowing and drying of the flower stalk, the appearance of pink plaque in the axils of the leaves, decay and complete death of the roots.
- Sail A high yield crop variety. Bulbs are flat-round, large, with white-off scales. It is characterized by a sharp taste. Teeth from 7 to 10. The mass of garlic heads is 30-47 g. The average susceptibility to peronosporosis is a fungal disease, otherwise referred to as "downy mildew." The strongest lesion foci are observed in areas with a humid climate; the peak of lesions occurs in rainy years. The affected plant lags behind in growth, has a paler color of the aerial part, a change in the shape of the leaves and the appearance of pale green spots on them. The latter, with an increase, are covered with a gray-violet coating and cause the death of the plant.