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Every year, gardeners around the world face the same tedious but necessary task. Preparing a bed for garlic may seem like a bore to someone, but if you don’t take care of it in the fall, then plantings will most likely not survive the winter. The topic of this article is a bed for garlic, how to prepare winter garlic and how to plant it for the winter.
Site Selection
It is very important to choose a suitable place that will fully provide winter garlic with plenty of sunlight, but at the same time will not accumulate water. That is, you should not plant garlic in depressions and lowlands, where water from melting snow will drain in the spring. The culture grows best on loamy soil, especially if the acidity is neutral or low. A big plus will be the presence of organic residues, which over the winter will turn into good fertilizer.
It is important to choose the right predecessors, since winter garlic is not “friendly” with all plants.
Garlic shows high yield and disease resistance when planted after cucumbers, peppers, eggplants, pumpkins, zucchini, tomatoes, early ripe potatoes and cabbage. During their growth in the garden, they fertilize the soil well with various chemical elements, creating a favorable atmosphere for the growing season of garlic.
If possible, do not plant garlic after late-ripening varieties of potatoes, radishes, turnips, carrots. During their growing season, they take all the useful trace elements from the soil. And in a short time of calm, after harvesting before planting, the soil does not have time to recover. Growing any crop on depleted soil is not the best idea.
Winter garlic should not be grown after any other type of garlic. Long-term cultivation of a crop in one place leads to the fact that insect pests and fungal spores settle in this area and lead to infection of new plants.
Soil cultivation
A bed for garlic should be properly treated with special preparations. In the fall, just before digging, the earth should be disinfected. It is widely practiced to use the fungicidal preparations “Fitosporin” and “Topsin-M” to destroy the spores of the fungus, as well as to prevent their reproduction next year. Antiseptic insecticides “Acrobat” and “Radomil Gold” are also used. You should combine them with other chemicals to achieve the best result. The soil can be watered:
- a solution of copper sulfate (for this, 40 grams of the substance must be dissolved in 10 liters of water, 1 liter of the solution is used per 1 square meter of the site);
- a strong solution of potassium permanganate (to do this, dissolve potassium permanganate crystals in 10 liters of water to get a rich raspberry solution);
- a solution of Bordeaux mixture (for this, dissolve 100 grams of the substance in 10 liters of water, as with copper sulphate per 1 square meter, there is 1 liter of the resulting solution);
- a solution of boric acid, copper sulfate, potassium permanganate (to do this, mix 1 gram of each substance in 1 liter of water).
Prevention of the formation of fungal deposits is carried out with infusions of yarrow and calendula.
Also, on the eve of planting, the bed for garlic should be fertilized. They use both ready-made mixtures for fertilizer, which are sold in garden stores, and made independently. You can use any of the following recipes:
- Recipe number 1. You will need 1 bucket of mullein or horse manure, 1 tablespoon of double superphosphate, 10-12 grams of nitrophoska, 1 cup of slaked lime. Thoroughly mix the ingredients and apply the mixture to 1 square meter of the site.
- Recipe number 2. You will need 15 grams of potassium salt, 20 grams of simple superphosphate, 1 bucket of organic fertilizer, 1 cup of slaked lime. The proportion is calculated for 1 square meter of the site.
- Recipe number 3. You will need 5 kilograms of humus, 30 grams of double superphosphate in granules, 25 grams of potassium salt. The proportion is calculated for 1 square meter of the site.
Digging the soil for the winter is carried out to a depth of at least 20 centimeters, that is, approximately 1-1,5 bayonet spades.
Having finished digging the site, water it well, and then cover it with polyethylene or roofing material before planting.
Preparation of teeth and bulbs
Seed preparation is a step that should never be skipped. First of all, calibrate the teeth and bulbs, selecting only the largest, healthy, unaffected specimens. Even slightly damaged cloves should be thrown away. Remove the “mother’s bottom” from each clove selected for planting so that it does not interfere with the germination of the roots. Also form bulbs into small groups according to size.
A week before planting, winter garlic is soaked in a pink solution of potassium permanganate for a day. You can also use a solution of copper sulphate: 10 tablespoon of vitriol is taken for 1 liters of water, soaked for a day. Ash liquor is also used to harden the seed in the fall: 2 liters of a solution with ash are boiled for 15 minutes in 5 liters of water, cooled, filtered and soaked in it for 2 hours.
Landing
In order for garlic to survive the winter well, you need to plant it correctly. On the site, make furrows up to 15 centimeters deep, cover with 3 centimeters of clean river sand. Water well, and then lay out the cloves with the sharp part up, keeping a distance of 10-15 centimeters between them. After you fill them with earth, water again and carefully mulch the beds with straw, sawdust or pine needles. Before the onset of cold weather, cover the beds with roofing material.
Bulbs are planted in furrows 5-6 centimeters deep, laid on moistened sand at a depth of 3 centimeters, sprinkled with earth, watered, and then mulched. Also, planting bulbs for the winter is possible in newspapers. On the beds, lay out newspapers with holes in which to place the bulbs, sprinkle with earth on top, water and mulch with plant debris. This method will help get rid of weeds in the garden.
Video “Preparing beds and planting garlic”
This video is about how to prepare the beds for planting garlic in the fall.
