Rocumball Garlic, Giving A Large Head, Agricultural Technology

Garlic, giving a large head the size of a fist and juicy appetizing greens

A summer resident who has even a small piece of land is sure to try to plant at least a small bed of garlic. Agree, it's so nice: digging out the garlic and serving it to the table with young potatoes and sour cream - what could be tastier? What do you say if this dug head is the size of a good man's fist ?!

Of course, not all winter varieties of garlic delight every year with their large-fruited, but there is an exception here - this is rockambol. This type of garlic is not yet very common in Russia, although it can be grown throughout our territory. Amateur vegetable growers call it differently: Egyptian onion, Spanish garlic, or simply garlic onion.

My brother and I began to breed him on our site with a minimum amount. Once, having gone to a neighboring regional center on business, we went to the local market, there were few sellers, probably it was not a market day. In a corner, modestly spreading her simple goods on cardboard boxes, an elderly woman was sitting and bored. Among the bunches of vegetables lay five huge one-toothed bulbs, like a child's fist, and a box with orange, round-flattened, hard, interesting seeds. We talked - the woman explained that this is a kind of garlic, and these are its seeds. And from all this, very large heads grow. We, of course, doubted a little if this was so, but we nevertheless purchased the bulbs and seeds.

In the fall, they prepared a bed, brought in humus, ash and superphosphate, dug well. And already at the end of September, they planted five one-tooth and side by side, having previously removed the keratinized hard shells, planted baby seeds. For the winter, the beds were mulched with humus and fallen leaves. By the beginning of winter, all the one-toothed teeth had sprouted. Both they and the children overwintered well. The new garlic developed well. By July 20, he was ready to harvest. We started digging in our planted one-toothed. And then it was time to be surprised, because a powerful head appeared from under the ground, indeed, the size of a good fist, and besides, it was also clung around by children.

For interest, we immediately went to weigh the harvest. The largest bulb pulled 450 g, and weighed from 300 to 400 g; from the children, one-tooth weighing 40-50 g grew, which the next year gave either a large one-tooth or a head up to 70 g. So gradually from year to year this garlic of rockambol was divorced in our country. Later, when we were in that regional center on business, we wanted to see that woman again to thank her for that garlic. But, unfortunately, we never met either her or other traders of this garlic. Later, having leafed through the mountains of literature, we learned that, it turns out, this interesting culture is called rocamboll garlic.

At the same time, we learned that rocambol is a perennial herb from the onion genera. And with its aboveground part, it is very similar to a leek - it has a powerful leaf apparatus and a thick stem, forms a high arrow with a spherical inflorescence, on which there are many purple flowers that do not form seeds. It must be removed so that the nutrients are not wasted in vain, and everything goes to the bulb in the ground. The bulbs are covered with upper white fleshy scales, the cloves are juicy with a slightly pungent onion-garlic aroma, covered with hard orange scales. On the roots and under the tops of the white scales are numerous dark brown baby onions.

The stem of the plant is 50-80 cm high, linear leaves are 4-10 mm wide, half the length of the stem. The bulbs and leaves are used for food similar to garlic. In a large head there are 4 to 8 teeth, while the larger the teeth, the less of them in the head. Rocambol can be quickly and easily propagated by both large bulbs and small fraction of cloves, and especially by children. This garlic, unlike winter garlic, is well stored throughout the winter and until April, so it can be grown as a spring crop even in the north of our country. A simple winter planting gives larger heads than a spring planting.

The agrotechnology of rockamboll is no different from the cultivation of ordinary garlic, but you need to water it more often and more abundantly. This is required for the formation of large heads. The time of harvesting rockambol tells itself - its lower leaves begin to dry out and the stem is inclined - it must be removed immediately. In a week it will be too late - the delicate cover scales will burst, the children will fall out and get lost in the ground, the head will disintegrate into teeth. Such planting material will then be difficult to save.