Growing Winter Garlic: The Choice Of Planting Material

Small secrets of large garlic. Part 2

Read the first part of the article - Growing winter garlic: agricultural technology

Garlic harvest

In my opinion, winter garlic is the easiest crop to cultivate and, besides, it requires the least amount of labor. In order to estimate the "labor intensity" of garlic, I once wrote down the time spent on cultivating one hundred square meters of this crop. In total, it turned out about two working days (12 hours each) of one person's work, including collecting foliage for mulching.

Many summer residents and owners of personal subsidiary farms do not pay attention to winter garlic: you don't need a lot of it, buying a couple of kilograms for harvesting is not particularly expensive. This is true. But it's worth looking at the "garlic economy" from the other side. Let's count together. In the market, grandmothers sell garlic for at least 10 rubles per head. Most often, this garlic is not the largest 40 grams. In a kilogram, 25 heads are obtained - 250 rubles per kg.

Last year everything turned out to be even more interesting. Chinese scientists have announced that eating garlic can save you from bird flu. And the selling price of Chinese farmers jumped five (!) Times. The Russian market immediately reacted to the increase in prices by the Chinese.

At the end of August in Omsk, the price of 20 rubles per head of garlic on the market surprised few people. That is, it turned out to be 500 rubles per kg. Not bad? What other garden culture can boast such a price? But getting 1 kg of garlic per square meter of the ridge is not a problem. So consider the economic effect.

It is clear that not everyone is ready to sit in the market selling their products one by one. But this is not necessary. Last year, garlic sold well in kilograms - 200 rubles per kilogram. As far as cunning people are dealers, they also took for this price.

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Unfortunately, garlic has one unpleasant characteristic. He tolerates "moving" very badly. Excellent planting material from a neighboring area, even with good care, almost always gives a significant decrease in yield. Therefore, as a rule, garlic varieties are distributed in a limited area.

Sometimes you can find ads for sale by mail. The sellers really get a great harvest and don't fool buyers. But when buying garlic in another region, even with a climate similar to yours, you should be prepared for the fact that not such large heads will grow as you received in the mail. And it is not the seller and agricultural technician who are to blame, but the peculiarities of this culture. Well, he doesn't like changing the place of cultivation. I was convinced of this on my own experience.

For example, some gardeners have been buying selected heads for planting from me for three years. At the same time, they receive detailed advice on growing - but there is no such crop as mine. Garlic takes a long time to adapt, because it reproduces not by seeds, but by vegetative means. And there is no guarantee that the variety will eventually adapt.

If you want more guarantees of a high yield - buy on the spot. Even if it's not a varietal material. There are always wonderful selections in local populations. You can buy in the market from grandmothers. One has only to pay attention to the fact that the planting heads and teeth are large. Garlic, as a rule, has a clear dependence - the larger the planting cloves, the more likely it is to get large heads.

Why "chances"? With all the simplicity of cultivation, success still depends not only on the planting material, but also to a large extent on agricultural technology: looseness of the soil, moisture and nutrition, the correct planting time. In reality, large and small heads can grow from large teeth. From small - small.

In spring, garlic germinates well

through a layer of rapeseed and mulch

So what - not to buy by shipment? For myself, I decided that it was still worth buying. And then try to regionalize the valuable variety. Breeding is fun. Namely, enthusiastic gardeners are engaged in selection, selecting the best samples of garlic according to the necessary indicators. Read carefully the articles of garlic growers selling planting material. Almost always we are talking about 15-18 years of cultivation of the variety.

In fact, such gardeners have already formed their own variety, often differing in morphological characteristics from the original variety. So every gardener can be a garlic breeder in his area.

So I have formed my own "grade". I call it Omsk Choice. The title reflects the essence. The population was selected from many large samples purchased in Omsk and in the south of the Omsk region. There are 5-6 teeth in the head. There is another local form with up to 13 cloves. But for now, for this population, a 60-gram head is the maximum. And I would very much like to have a large garlic with a higher multiplication factor than 1: 5-6. × Notice board Kittens for sale Puppies for sale Horses for sale

At the exhibition "Flora - 2010" held in Omsk I saw an interesting marketing technique. The seller exhibited heads weighing about 100 grams as a visual sample. But as seed material, heads were sold much smaller - no more than 40 grams. I am far from thinking that the seller deliberately misled the gardeners, most likely, this was done out of ignorance. But the fact remains. Large garlic does not grow from small planting material in the vast majority of cases. And those who bought this garlic, I can say with a high degree of probability, will be disappointed with the result.

I also met frankly dishonest sellers. They just buy Chinese or Uzbek garlic and sell it under the guise of local. You can not expect seedlings from such planting material at all. At least on my site, the Chinese or Uzbek garlic bought in a store never rose. To avoid such a trick, you should pay attention to the length of the false stem with an arrow. The garlic brought in is always cut short. Better to take with long "sticks" or with preserved tops.

It so happens that you have the opportunity to buy large heads of garlic, and the planting time has already passed. Feel free to buy. Many gardeners have already tested the method of winter planting of winter garlic, proposed by I.P. Zamyatkin.

The method is simple. In winter, you plant the teeth in a box with soil (level with the ground) and wait for the first shoots. Then you bury the box in the snow, choosing a place where the snow is thicker and where it melts later in the spring. For example, on the north side of the building. You can also add snow.

In the spring, you need to choose a place where the soil was previously ready for planting and plant seedlings there. Further care - as usual. Plants from such a planting are more powerful. They have 1-2 leaves more than in the autumn planting, and the head grows larger. But they ripen 1-2 weeks later. That, in general, with a short growing season, garlic is not a problem.

Have a nice harvest!