Harvesting spring garlic

Garlic is a healthy vegetable that never stales on store shelves. But many s who have their own plots prefer to grow garlic with their own hands. After all, the finished product does not contain harmful substances, since gardeners most often do not use chemicals and products.

Beginners are also engaged in growing a healthy vegetable. It is they who are most often interested in when to remove spring garlic from the garden for winter storage. This is perhaps the most important and difficult question, since it depends on it whether the effort and time spent on growing a healthy vegetable will benefit. We will try to explain this in an accessible way.

Landing time is important

The answer to the question of when to harvest spring varieties planted in spring will depend on many parameters:

1. The climatic conditions of the region, and, accordingly, the time of planting cloves in the ground. As a rule, garlic is planted while the earth has not warmed up too much, before the mass summer of the onion fly. The teeth have time to take root, then the harm from the larvae is minimal.
2. In central Our Country, in Siberia, cloves are planted at the end of April, early May. The onset of spring must also be taken into account. Morning frosts can hurt.
3. The weather in summer is also an important factor. Beginners should remember that in dry, hot weather, maturation occurs faster, which means that harvesting will begin earlier. And in a cool, rainy summer, it stretches, so the timing of harvesting spring varieties is postponed.

Why are we talking about the timing of planting vegetables in the spring? The fact is that it is possible to calculate mathematically the approximate time of harvesting spring garlic. As a rule, for full maturation, this plant needs 100-102 days, a little more than three months.

It turns out that the cloves of spring varieties of garlic planted at the end of April must be harvested in the first decade of August. If the planting was carried out a week later, then we remove the vegetable after August 15th. Sometimes the harvesting time is extended until the beginning of September.

Is the garlic ripe?

You can understand when spring varieties of garlic are ready visually, by special signs indicating its maturity and readiness for harvesting.

For beginners, we recommend that you carefully read the advice of experienced gardeners:

• the vegetative process slows down, the plant stops releasing new feathers;
• the lower, upper leaves and stem of the vegetable lose their greenery, turn yellow;
• the neck becomes thinner, soft to the touch, the stem from a vertical position passes into a horizontal one.
• most of the plants turn yellow and lodging.

Yellowing of leaves and stems can occur for various reasons, so it should not be considered the only and main indicator. There are other points that you need to pay attention to when visually inspecting.

One of the most important indicators by which you can determine when to dig up spring garlic is the formation of the head. To do this, you can pull out 1-2 plants. If these conditions are met, then we can assume that the garlic is ripe, and it’s time to remove it:

1. The bulb is dense, with a clear division into cloves.
2. The bottom is dry with dark roots.
3. The shirt is intact, it has three protective layers. The top layer is rustling, easily removed without damaging the integrity of the head.
4. The teeth can be separated without much effort.
5. The scales acquired the characteristic color of the variety.

If the garlic has not reached the marketable condition, then it is distinguished by a loose and soft head. In overripe bulbs, there is a division into cloves, there are new white roots.

Is it possible to accelerate maturation

As a rule, the ripening of spring garlic occurs unevenly, not only because of the variety. Even a lack or excess of moisture during irrigation can affect the ripening time. When harvesting spring garlic, do not rip out the entire garden, but do it selectively.

Firstly, the question of the timing of harvesting spring planting garlic is also important because in 2-3 weeks it is necessary to suspend the vegetation process and direct all the forces of the plant to ripening. Irrigation must be stopped.

Secondly, you need to know when to dig spring garlic also because in August, as a rule, heavy rains begin. They can reduce the keeping quality of the vegetable. If you know from the weather report when the bad weather starts, then you can speed up the process of garlic ripening a little to remove it earlier:

• choose the ground to bare the heads;
• tie the garlic stalks into a knot.

When to Harvest Garlic:

How to dig it right

Garlic is harvested in dry sunny weather to leave the selected crop in the garden for several hours to dry. It is not recommended to simply pull out the plants: the root is very long, firmly held in the ground. Most often, the stem breaks off along the neck, and the head itself remains in the ground. It is recommended to dig garlic from the garden with a pitchfork, so it is less injured.

Experienced gardeners advise not to cut the stem immediately. The fact is that in the process of drying, the outflow of nutrients into the bulb continues. You can remove the stem before sorting the garlic and storing it.

When digging garlic, immediately discard plants with obvious damage so that the disease does not pass to healthy heads. The crop, slightly dried under the sun, is transferred to a well-ventilated area. There it will ripen for 2-3 weeks. Only after that, the roots and stem are trimmed, sorted and stored for storage.

To summarize

So, we told you when to start harvesting spring garlic, given the visual inspection of the plants, the time of planting the cloves and the approximate growing season. Of course, no one will argue that it is impossible to name the exact number of harvests from garlic beds. It all depends, first of all, on the climatic features of the region, weather conditions, varieties.

Of course, for the first time, beginners will have to take into account all the options for checking the readiness of garlic for harvesting, but over time, the “identification” procedure will become simpler. We wish you a rich harvest and keep it until spring.