It is reliably known that garlic was grown even in ancient Egypt, this fact makes this vegetable the patriarch of cultivated vegetable growing. Depending on the timing of planting, garlic is divided into spring and winter - the one that is planted in autumn, "before winter". It is this garlic that enjoys the greatest popularity, as it ripens a couple of weeks earlier and has increased keeping quality, if stored properly, the winter crop can be saved until the next winter.
Winter garlic
The whole variety of varieties can be conditionally divided into 2 groups: rifle and non-rifle. Of the first, the most popular varieties are Promin, Spas, Duchess, Prometheus, Zubrenok, etc., and the second - Gribovsky anniversary, Dubovsky, Gribovsky 60, Aleisky. If you doubt what kind of variety belongs to, look carefully at the head: the shooter has from 5 to 12 large teeth arranged in one circle, and the non-shooter has 14-30 small ones arranged in a spiral. It is for non-shooting winter varieties that a good planting of garlic in the fall. Fertilizers applied to the soil depend not only on the variety, type of soil, but also on the timing of planting.
Optimal landing times
The best results are given by planting garlic in the fall. Planting dates may vary slightly depending on weather conditions, but experienced gardeners advise planting garlic from September 30 to October 20. Of course, if the autumn turned out to be warm and sunny, the planting dates can be slightly shifted, however, it should be remembered that garlic should be well strengthened to frost, but not have time to sprout very much, otherwise the whole crop may die. The optimum t˚C should be at least 13–15˚C. At this temperature, planting garlic in the fall, fertilizing the soil and other work on the site will bring not only pleasure, but also a good harvest.
Before planting, it is necessary to prepare the site, remove weeds and make the necessary fertilizing. What fertilizer is best for garlic is difficult to say. It all depends on the quality of the soil on your site.
Preparing the soil
If your site is sandy loamy soil, you are lucky - this culture loves it very much. Fertilizers for garlic are applied in the fall two weeks before planting, for this it is necessary to dig a bed to a depth of about 20 cm and make humus about 5-6 kg / m
2 . Please note that fresh manure cannot be used in this case. If the soil in your area is clay, then you need to make peat in the amount of 1 bucket / m
2 .
As a fertilizer for garlic in the fall, potassium salt is also added to the soil - 20 g / m 2 and superphosphate - 30 g per m 2 . And in the loamy soil also contribute chalk, fluffy lime or dolomite flour. But nitrogen fertilizers should not be used, they provoke the growth of the green mass of the plant, and for the garlic, the root part is most important.
How to place garlic in the garden
It is not necessary to start planting crops immediately, but somewhere a week after fertilizing. For garlic in the fall, it is very important to follow the rules of planting, since watering at this time of year is very limited and the teeth can take root poorly.
The most common way of planting garlic in beds made by a chopper, but you can do it in another way - to make a hole for planting each clove. To do this, take a metal tube or peg and punch holes of the desired depth.
When you use large teeth for planting, the holes should be 7 cm deep, and if the planting material is not too large, then 4-5 cm. Just before planting, pour a little wood ash into the hole - this will ensure that your garlic is fed until spring.
Whatever method of planting you choose, remember that you need to arrange rows at a distance of at least 25 cm from each other, and the gaps between the teeth should be about 7-10 cm wide in the palm of your hand. You do not need to push the teeth too much - you can damage the bottom and they’re poorly rooted, it’s better to just “put” them at the right depth and carefully sprinkle them with earth.
Do I need to cook garlic and how to do it
The day before planting, the heads of garlic should be taken apart into cloves, you should not do this before - the cloves can dry out very much and partially lose their properties. Also, do not peel the skin from the teeth, because some fertilizers for garlic are applied directly to the hole in the fall, and the seed can “burn out”.
Select for planting the strongest and largest teeth, from small, weighing less than 3 g, a good harvest will not work. Please note that if the entire head consists of two or three cloves, then it is not suitable for planting - this is degenerate material, there will be no crop.
For better rooting, you can soak the culture in a solution of ordinary salt - 1 tbsp / 2l of water, and then in a weak solution of potassium permanganate. This will protect the seedlings from many diseases. For the same purposes, you can use copper sulfate, 1% solution, or use ready-made drugs. Suitable “Fitosporin”, “Barrier”, “Immunocytophyte”, “Barrier”.
Fertilizers for garlic in autumn and spring: when, where and how much
Autumn fertilization almost ends before the garlic is planted and is limited to the
preparation of the soil layer. After planting the beds, it is recommended to mulch with dead grass, sawdust or tops of plants. This will help retain moisture longer and protect the plant from severe frosts.
In early spring, as soon as the first shoots hatch, the garlic should be fed with a urea solution at the rate of 1 tbsp. l. / 10l of water. Per square meter a meter should go about five liters.
A little later, in April, top dressing should be made twice more. The first time use a solution of chicken droppings and nitroammophoski, the first you need to take 0.5 l, and the second - 1 tbsp. a spoon. Stir it into 10 liters of water. And at the end of the month, use a slightly different composition: 1 teaspoon will be needed for 10 liters of water. urea, 1 tbsp. l potassium sulfate and double superphosphate.
One of the main secrets of a good harvest is
foliar dressing of garlic. It differs from the usual one in that fertilizers are not poured under the root, but sprayed from above. Do this most often when the feathers begin to turn yellow. For foliar fertilizer, ammonium nitrate or urea is used, the concentration of the solution should be much less than usual. It is necessary to carry out foliar top dressing only in the evening, in cloudy weather, otherwise you can "burn" the green mass.
Garlic loves friable soil and the complete absence of weeds, so the next day after applying fertilizer or watering, the soil must be loosened. By the way, if the weather turned out to be not too rainy, then the beds need to be abundantly watered - this culture loves water. However, do not overdo it - excess watering is just as harmful as drought.
Picking a crop
You can collect garlic when a pair of lower leaves turned yellow or dried. Bulbs are pulled out and, together with leaves, laid out on ridges or suspended in bunches in a dry, blown room. As the stems dry, the nutrients from them pass into the bulb. Garlic is considered ready for storage when it begins to rustle in the hands. It is tied into braids or, having cut off dry foliage, is folded into linen bags for subsequent storage.