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Growing Spring Garlic Near St. Petersburg
Growing Spring Garlic Near St. Petersburg

Video: Growing Spring Garlic Near St. Petersburg

Video: Growing Spring Garlic Near St. Petersburg
Video: Garlic: Growing from Spring Time to Summer Harvest! 2024, March
Anonim
  • Planting garlic
  • Garlic planting care
  • Garlic dressing
  • Spring Garlic Harvesting
  • Storing garlic
Garlic
Garlic

Spring garlic, summer garlic, non-shooting garlic - this is what gardeners call the garlic that we are used to planting in spring and digging up in autumn. But spring garlic can also be planted in autumn where the summer is very short and the spring garlic does not have time to ripen. Gardeners do not really like him for his small teeth. And in my area near Vyborg, large bulbs of this garlic with excellent teeth are obtained in the hot summer when watering. Although I always fill the bed according to the same rules, I try to maintain the same planting dates, but in a sunny summer the garlic always turns out to be larger.

There is confusion with varieties of garlic in our garden plots, that is, they simply do not exist. In our zone, this crop is not industrial, there are no special varieties for it, we plant all the garlic that we could get it, and then every year we ourselves select the planting material from the grown crop. As a result, there are varieties on the plots with a vegetation period of 90-100 days, and there are also more than 100 days.

Spring garlic, like winter garlic, must go through a vernalization period. We understand that for this it is necessary to greatly reduce the temperature. Winter garlic is vernalized in autumn and winter in the soil.

Many methods have been invented for vernalizing spring garlic. It is advisable to keep the planting material at a temperature of + 1 ° C … 0 ° C … -1 ° C a month before planting. There are several ways to do this vernalization:

1. Bury it in frozen ground one month before planting. For example, I use this option a lot. At the end of March, in the garden, I find a place where the snow has already melted, usually near the house. I disassemble the garlic into slices, put it in a mesh with small cells, and tie it to a stick. With difficulty I dig a hole to the depth of a shovel bayonet and bury the garlic there. In mid-April, I already completely move to the dacha and with thawed earth I cover the digging place from above so that the garlic does not warm up. By the time of disembarkation, and I have the land for spring garlic ready at about the end of April, I dig out my "cache", pull out a net with garlic by the stick. By this time, he is already all with roots. Of course, for all gardeners, depending on the zone where the plots are located, the timing of planting garlic is different, so everyone should start vernalization in their own way.

2. Disassemble the garlic into wedges, moisten in a solution of ash and place in rows in a container (box, bowl, etc.). Cover each row with a cloth soaked in this solution. Then place this container in the refrigerator on the shelf where the temperature is coldest. I also use this method sometimes. By the time of planting, all the garlic will also be with roots. You can also leave this container between the window frames or on the loggia, but you need to constantly monitor the temperature so as not to freeze the planting material.

3. Between the frames you can put dry garlic without disassembling it into cloves. The main thing is to lower the temperature for vernalization.

4. You can take the garlic to the dacha in March, leave it in the house, because at this time the temperature in the room is already close to 0 ° C.

5. I know that some gardeners store garlic in paper bags at a temperature of + 6 ° C … + 8 ° C with a humidity of 60-70% (ie in the refrigerator). They believe that this is how garlic is stored well in winter, and in the spring, planted at the earliest possible date, it normally develops and ripens later. I have never kept it like that, and therefore I cannot judge the effectiveness of this method.

Planting garlic

Root regrowth begins at temperatures from -1 ° C to + 5 ° C. Active root growth occurs when the soil warms up to + 5 ° C … + 8 ° C. The growth of its roots is inhibited when planted in soil with a temperature of + 23 ° C and above. I try to plant spring garlic as early as possible in cold, moist soil. Therefore, I prepare a garden for garlic in the fall. I dig deep with a shovel full of bayonet. I put all plant residues in the furrows - flower tops, Jerusalem artichoke stalks, cucumber and tomato stalks from the greenhouse, clover of the last cut, potato tops, in a word, everything that is in the garden at this time. Sprinkle with dolomite flour, superphosphate, azophos. Be sure to add humus 1-1.5 buckets per 1 m².

On the eve of winter, the soil on the garden bed is not harrowed, the bed turnover is rough. They crumble slightly over the winter. In the spring, as soon as you can go to the garden bed, I cover its entire area with ash, and I immediately harrow the soil. In this way, I not only loosen the soil, but also deacidify it, and also cover the moisture. I make holes with a peg and put the cloves of garlic there. I fill the wells with humus, level the soil and mulch the entire garden bed with a layer of 1-1.5 cm from above.

If the garlic turned out to be with roots during vernalization, I do it differently. I also sprinkle the bed with ashes, immediately harrow. I outline the rows, along them I make grooves 10-15 cm deep with a scoop. I sprinkle humus on the bottom of them, mix it with the soil with the same scoop and spread the garlic. I sprinkle it with soil, slightly compact it in the row with my hand, and I also mulch the entire area of the garden with humus. I do not mulch winter garlic, but I mulch spring garlic so that the soil does not dry out.

The distance between the rows is 20-30 cm, between the cloves - 8-10 cm. I make it at least 10 cm in my beds, and I deepen the cloves by 5-7 cm, it depends on the soil and on the date of planting. You were late with planting - the top layer is already dry, and the roots need moisture, so plant them deeper, and even better - water the plantings. It is recommended to take for planting the cloves of the first (outer) row in the head of garlic and the subsequent one after it. The small teeth in the middle of the bulb can be used for planting on greens. Just bury them somewhere in a secluded place in a bunch, and you will have greens all summer. In 2010, I didn't have enough spring garlic for planting. And I decided to plant small teeth, those in the middle of the bulb. I planted a number of such cloves next to large ones so that you could see the difference in development. In the summer, there was not much difference,but in the fall it appeared. All rows with large teeth perished, their leaves began to turn yellow. And the row with small teeth was green. For a long time I had to wait for his lodging, then I could not stand it and laid the tops myself. The small cloves are a little finer, but generally quite good. But I still think that it is not for nothing that they recommend not planting garlic with small teeth.

Garlic planting care

Be sure to loosen the soil in the garden after each rain, weed it 2-3 times per season. In some recommendation I read that watering the garlic is necessary constantly for 60-65 days from the day of emergence. I have my own attitude to watering. Only in the sunniest summer I water the garden. For example, I water spring garlic no more than two times. In 2010, for some reason, gardeners only remember the heat, but when I look at my notes, I see that it rained in May and June, which means that the roots had time to grow and went deep into the wet layer, but the top one needs to be loosened.

Of course, those who have solid sand in the garden need watering there. I can give advice to such gardeners: patiently in the fall deeply (preferably one and a half bayonet of a shovel), bury as much plant residues as possible. First, the water will not quickly go "nowhere", and secondly, humus will gradually accumulate. When we acquired the site, there was no humus in the soil. The owner covered the swamp with a thick layer of sand and stones, so we had to patiently build up humus in the soil, burying plant residues and manure into the beds every year. According to the modern recommendations of creating a "lazy" vegetable garden, I would not have succeeded, since the swamp pulls everything down. Three years later, the soil in the garden began to change, and after five years it already seemed black. But its basis is still sand, it has not gone anywhere.

When weeding the weeds, I do not shake off the roots, so I carry them into the compost. As a result, it turns out black, crumbly, smells like fresh earth, but still it is a little rough for growing seedlings, since there is a lot of sand there. But pouring it under shrubs, flowers, replacing the soil in the greenhouse with it is the very thing that is needed.

Garlic dressing

As they say, you cannot teach watering and feeding plants. If the ridge has been filled with all the rules in the fall, in the spring I add only ash to the soil. If you think that this is not enough, then you can apply a complete mineral fertilizer, which contains nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and trace elements (the application rates are on the package). In the recommendations for gardeners, a lot of attention is paid to fertilizing. I look at the leaves of plants - they grow poorly and are yellowish in color - you can immediately feed them with ammonium nitrate, or better - potassium nitrate. But you have to watch the weather. In the spring, when it gets cold, I am in no hurry to apply mineral fertilizers. We'll have to wait a bit. Warmth will come and everything will work out; the optimum temperature for leaf growth is + 10 ° C … + 15 ° C. If the ridge was filled with everything necessary, including organic matter,but you still don't like something in the development of plants, water the plantings with "Ideal" or dilute the powder "Humate + 7" and water. Make an infusion of herbs, you can infuse slurry and water.

In my spring garlic in the first years of the development of the site, it grew medium-sized, although it cannot be said that it was also small, but still not the way I would like to see it. In one of the clubs, an experienced gardener of old age worked with me, he brought and showed us bulbs of spring garlic the size of a bulb of winter garlic. Of course, he taught us how to grow it, gave us one bulb each. The next spring I did as he taught. In winter, when I met at the club, I showed him my bulbs. Of course, my garlic again grew smaller than his. To my question: "Why did this happen?" - he replied: "You have poor land, little humus." And he was right, since I have been improving my sand for only five years, i.e. it was necessary to continue "making the earth." And only after 10-15 years the garlic bulbs began to grow in our country of decent size.

But it's not just organic matter that affects bulb size. Heat affects them greatly. In 2010, on a sunny summer, the bulbs were not large by the standard. And before that, I looked closely at the results, compared: what is the difference in the size of the garlic bulbs on my site or in Sinyavino, where the garden of that veteran gardener was, or, say, in Pavlovsk. The optimum temperature for bulbs ripening is + 20 ° С… 25 ° С and above. If the temperature is lower, then do not feed, and the garlic will not be large.

Over the summer, I do several cleanings, that is, I look through the leaves, stems - there are no diseases and pests. I dig up, I don't pull out, but I dig out suspicious plants, I examine the roots, the bottom of the teeth. I water the onions with salt or potassium chloride against onion flies, onion hoverflies, and immediately water spring and winter garlic with this solution. We do not always see ticks and thrips on stems and leaves. We find it only in winter in the bulbs under the scales. Now there are on sale biological products Alirin-B, Gamair-TM - they can be used to treat plants against diseases, as well as Lepidocid, Bitoxibacillin - against pests.

Spring Garlic Harvesting

Leaves and stems begin to turn yellow - the plants themselves lie on the ground. But most often the leaves do not turn yellow, and the stems gradually tilt towards the ground, and only then they begin to turn yellow, new leaves are no longer formed. This is the signal to harvest the garlic. The recommendation to dry the garlic for 4-5 days in the sun in our area is unrealistic. Therefore, first I lay it out on a concrete path near the house, on benches in one layer during the day, and at night I bring it into the shed. Every day I sort it out so that the earth crumbles faster. Then I put the garlic in the attic, lay it out in one layer, there is good ventilation, and the garlic dries well. After that, I cut off the roots, remove the very top dirty scales and cut off the stems. And some gardeners even weave garlic into beautiful braids.

You can dry garlic in another way, i.e. simplify the procedure. If the stems turn yellow in the garden, then you can dig up and immediately cut off the roots, stems, remove the topmost dirty scales and put the garlic to dry in a ventilated room in one layer. It dries up perfectly.

Storing garlic

I store spring and winter garlic in my apartment, in the kitchen under the sofa, in boxes and nets. But so that diseases and pests do not come to life in the bulbs, it is necessary to create a temperature for garlic during storage within + 3 ° C … 0 ° C … -3 ° C. It is difficult for us to create such a temperature in apartments, therefore, in the fall, when pruning the stems, it is necessary to select the bulbs for planting and treat them from diseases and pests. In the old days, they were warmed up in autumn, or rather, they made smoke in barns at a temperature of 40 ° C … 45 ° C for up to two days. In our apartment conditions, you can heat garlic at 45 ° C for ten minutes, for example, you can hold it in hot water or on the stove. The recommendations for growing garlic advise to carry out different types of treatments before planting. I believe that this is not true, if ticks, thrips, fungi, bacteria have settled in the bulbs, then by spring, that is, by planting,from the bulbs some "crackers" will remain, everything will dry out. No wonder that in the old days the processing was carried out in the fall.

If you do not trust the heating, then you can process it with copper sulfate - 1 teaspoon per 10 liters of water and hold it there for 10-15 minutes. The famous Ganichkina in her first books advised to rinse the teeth in salt for 1-2 minutes before planting - 3 tablespoons per 5 liters of water, then immerse them in a solution of copper sulfate for 1 minute. The concentration of the solution is 1 teaspoon per 10 liters of water. I myself have not tried this option, familiar gardeners told me that this method does not help. Probably, such processing should be carried out after all in the fall. I would prefer to process it with copper sulfate in the fall - 1 teaspoon per 10 liters of water, hold for 10-15 minutes. Commercial garlic, that is, used for food, cannot be processed this way. Processing in a strong solution of potassium permanganate gives results if done in the fall. Now there are biological products, try to process them. I have not yet had to process either in the fall or in the spring, but this does not mean that my garlic is 100% pure; by spring, in some places, the teeth dry out for various reasons. But there are so few of them in comparison with the whole crop that I did not think about special processing.

I renew the winter garlic every year with bulbs, but even so there are problems. And spring has to be propagated vegetatively from year to year, so there will be problems. You need to be prepared for this.

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