How to store winter garlic at home 

Summer residents have to spend a lot of effort to harvest a quality crop of each crop. But this stage is not the last. Plants need to be grown, wait for the harvest, and then save it. Winter storage is important for any region. In the cold season, it is difficult to provide your diet with fresh vegetables and fruits, so summer residents think about storage methods in advance. In the article, we will consider the rules for storing winter garlic at home.

Winter garlic is a slightly picky vegetable, but very healthy.

As soon as at least one parameter is violated during storage, then without it you can be left long before the new harvest. But in addition to nutritional and taste advantages, it also has a strong therapeutic effect. Therefore, we will consider aspects of the proper storage of garlic heads in the winter.

Preliminary preparation before laying garlic for storage

High-quality storage of winter garlic at home is possible only with proper harvesting. Gardeners need to do everything according to the rules:

1. Observe cleaning deadlines. The main assistants in this are the lunar calendar, the weather forecast and the external signs of a plant ready for harvest.
2. As soon as the leaves of the plant turn yellow, the stem is soft, and the husks easily fall behind the cloves, then it’s time to harvest.
3. Ensure proper watering. 3-4 weeks before the expected harvest date, watering is stopped. In this case, the crop is stored better in winter. Therefore, try to dig out the heads before the onset of rains.
4. Choose suitable weather conditions. It is more difficult to preserve a vegetable harvested in rainy weather – additional drying is required.
5. Carefully dig up the heads of garlic for storage. To do this, use a pitchfork, not a shovel. Be sure to retreat from the stem of the plant by 5-7 cm, so as not to injure the garlic.

The next steps are drying, cleaning, sorting. Everyone is important and necessary. Summer residents need to wait for the natural stop of the vegetative processes in the plant.

In rainy times, the crop is laid out under a canopy for 10 days, in dry weather they are left on the beds.

Further actions include cleaning the soil, cutting the stems and roots. The remaining roots are burned.

Now the bulkhead.

If during the growing season there was an infection with a fungal infection or pest larvae, then the product will not last long. Therefore, any dubious heads are best discarded for priority use and not left for winter use.

Storage options for winter garlic at home

In order for garlic to retain its characteristics and attractive appearance, you need to choose the appropriate winter storage method for your conditions. There are only two main ways – warm and cold.

The parameters of the warm method are the temperature not higher than 200 ° C and the humidity in the room from 50% to 70%. More suitable for industrial applications. In the cold version, temperature indicators are kept from + 2 ° С to + 40 ° С, the percentage of humidity is allowed up to 90%. This option is closer to home storage. Most often, gardeners put the crop in the refrigerator. A winter vegetable does not require longer storage, it still will not withstand more than six months and will begin to deteriorate or germinate.

Among the huge number of ideas, gardeners single out the most convenient for winter garlic. Store the crop using:

1. cold method. A home refrigerator, sterilized glass containers, a cloth bag treated with saline are suitable for it.
2. salt method. With it, the heads of the winter product are sprinkled with dry salt.
3. Flour, sprinkling garlic cloves or heads with it.
4. Onion peel is also for pouring the harvested crop.
5. Vegetable oil. The cloves are poured with pre-prepared oil.
6. Paraffin. The substance provides long-term storage even at room temperature. With this method, the garlic does not lose moisture.
7. Pigtails from garlic stalks.
8. Boxes, nets, storage boxes.

Each method has its own nuances, advantages or disadvantages.

We keep winter garlic at home without problems

How to store winter garlic at home? Well proven, tested by many housewives, the options are a kitchen, a pantry, a refrigerator. To accommodate the winter crop at room conditions, use:

1. glass jars. They must be sterilized and dried. Then the unpeeled slices of the winter product are placed. But additional substances for the preservation of the vegetable are taken differently. If it is not sprinkled with anything, then tightly close the jar with a lid. In another case, the slices are covered with wheat flour. When adding flour, the jar is left open.

   

2. Another ingredient that saves winter garlic from spoilage in winter is table salt.The components are placed in a jar in layers, alternating garlic and salt.

   

3. Baskets are good for slices. They maintain the necessary ventilation without a draft. If you take cardboard boxes, plastic or wooden boxes, you will have to make holes in them.
4. Pigtail pendant.

   

   A popular method by which a winter vegetable has been stored since antiquity, they even decorated dwellings with braids. Such a kind of garlic decor. It is beneficial in that at any time you can inspect your stocks and find a damaged or damaged head. For weaving, a base is needed – a rope, a tourniquet, twine and garlic stalks 35 cm long. Therefore, determine the winter storage method for garlic in advance to leave the required stem length. One side of the braid is attached to the wall with a loop.

5. double bag. You will need two types of shopping bags – canvas and polyethylene. Canvas is placed inside the film, and winter prepared garlic is poured into a double “container”. The advantages of this method are the stability of the moisture parameters and the good preservation of the crop throughout the winter.
6. Vegetable oil. laborious way. The oil must be boiled for 1 hour, add 3-5 drops of iodine pharmacy solution. Unpeeled heads are laid out in oil, then removed and cooled. Before laying, the processed winter product is dried. For storage use any container of the desired size.

Important nuances

We looked at ways to properly store a winter vegetable at home in familiar conditions. If we store the product in an apartment, then glass containers with a tight lid should be recognized as the best option. Room temperature does not always contribute to the long-term preservation of the garlic crop. Therefore, many housewives do the right thing if they use several different methods at the same time. With a small amount of winter garlic, a kitchen refrigerator is suitable, if there are more supplies, then choose the most convenient one. Most often empirically, trying the listed options. In any case, don’t forget:

• regularly inspect and sort out stored garlic;
• make sure that the product is not stored in the light;
• observe the required humidity so that the heads do not rot or mold;
• remove damaged or diseased bulbs in time, especially when their color changes;
• pour oil on sprouting teeth.

Any home method of storing winter garlic will be reliable when laying quality material. Pay attention to the bulkhead of the bulbs after harvesting, provide the necessary temperature and humidity indicators. With this approach, you save a healthy vegetable until the next harvest.