Winter garlic

Planting winter garlic

Garlic loves fertile soil (1). Therefore, before planting, it must be generously fertilized. For 1 sq. m you need to add 4 – 6 kg (1/2 bucket) of humus (2) and rotted sawdust, 1 liter jar of wood ash, chopped chicken manure and fluffy lime. Everything is thoroughly mixed with a rake and they are also embedded in the soil to a depth of 10 cm. Fresh organics cannot be added under the garlic (it leads to decay), potassium chloride and urea – garlic does not like them.

A good indicator to start planting winter garlic is a soil temperature of 14 – 15 ° C

And in order to increase the chances of a good harvest, winter garlic is planted in 2 terms – at the end of September and in mid-October. After all, winters have become unpredictable, and garlic can freeze or get wet.

For the same safety reasons, garlic is planted at different depths. One row – by 4 cm, the other, side by side, – by 8. They make 2 lines with a distance of 25 cm and an interval between cloves of 10 – 15 cm. However, if the area allows, it makes sense to plant less often.

Before planting, it is useful to treat the cloves with Maxim or another modern fungicide according to the instructions.

It is best to plant garlic after tomatoes, cucumbers, early cabbage, zucchini, squash, melons (3). It is impossible – after onions and other bulbs – they have common diseases, and after strawberries – both cultures are affected by nematodes.

Varieties of winter garlic

Each type of garlic has its own advantages and disadvantages. Some have large heads and good yields, but at the same time they are heavily affected by diseases. Others are good in all three indicators, but are poorly stored. Therefore, it is important to choose such varieties so that they are at a high level according to all criteria. Only then will you receive a guarantee of large yields.

Here are a few varieties of winter garlic that summer residents have tried and received good reviews.

Lyubasha. Mid-season variety. The bulbs are flat-round, large (weighing 80 – 120 g). Each bulb has 5-7 cloves. The taste is spicy. The scales are white or pinkish with pale blue-violet streaks. Winter hardy. Not afraid of drought. Fusarium resistant. Well kept.

Near Moscow. Mid-season variety. The bulbs are flat-round, weighing up to 60 g, each with 5-7 cloves. The taste is spicy.

The scales are white with brownish-purple streaks. Winter hardy. Disease resistant. Well kept.

Saved. Mid-season variety. The bulbs are round-oval, weighing 60 – 100 g, 7 – 10 cloves. The taste is spicy. The scales are gray with a red tint and streaks of deep purple. Frost-resistant, resistant to fusarium and nematode. Keeps great!

There are several other varieties of garlic popular with summer residents, but they have drawbacks. For example, Alcor affected by the yellow dwarf virus. Belarusian, although weakly, is affected by bacterial rot, and its yield is average. Gribovsky anniversary poorly stored. The sail suffers from downy mildew, stem nematode and bacterial rot. Sofievsky although not much, it is affected by the nematode.

Winter Garlic Care

Care for winter garlic begins in early spring.

Loosening. It is carried out in April, as soon as the beds dry out, this will allow the soil crust to be broken so that oxygen enters the roots. You need to loosen shallowly, by 3 – 4 cm.

Mulching. Immediately after loosening the planting of garlic, you need to cover it with peat or humus with a layer of 5 cm. Such a mulch will allow moisture to remain longer after rains and watering. In addition, the soil will always remain loose. And in the case of humus, it is also an additional top dressing.

Watering. You only need to water the garlic for 2 months – in May and June. Consumption rate – 1 bucket per 1 sq. m. But the frequency of irrigation depends on the weather.

In the heat, garlic should be watered 2 times a week. In cool but dry weather – once a week. If it rains, do not water the garlic! Otherwise, it will simply rot.

From July, watering is stopped altogether, even if the weather is hot. Otherwise, the bulb will become watery and will not store well.

Feeding. Over the summer, only 3 dressings are enough for winter garlic:

• when 2 leaves appear – 1 tbsp. a spoonful of urea per bucket of water, the consumption rate is 3 liters per 1 sq. m;
• 2 weeks after the first – 2 tbsp. spoons of nitroammophoska per bucket of water, consumption rate – 5 liters per 1 sq. m;
• in early June, when bulbs are actively formed – 2 tbsp. tablespoons of superphosphate per bucket of water, consumption rate – 3 liters per 1 sq. m.

What is the difference between winter and spring

Many summer residents buy cloves for planting in garden centers or online stores. Of course, at the beginning of autumn, all sellers assure that they have winter garlic (spring is planted in spring). But, as practice shows, some of them cheat and shake off spring varieties in the fall, taking advantage of the fact that ordinary gardeners cannot distinguish them. Actually, it’s easy.

You can tell them apart by their heads.

Winter garlic has large cloves, usually an even number: 6, 8, 10, etc. They are arranged in a circle, in the center of which is a stem.

In spring garlic, the teeth are small, there are many of them, they are arranged in a spiral in descending order: outside – larger, inside – smaller. Spring garlic does not have a stem.

What to do if you slipped spring garlic instead of winter? Experienced summer residents know that it is very difficult to keep it – the heads either dry or rot. So you can completely stay without garlic. Therefore, do not pull until spring, plant at the end of September. Yes, spring garlic is less winter-hardy; in a harsh snowless winter it can freeze. But this problem is easily solved: in late autumn, plantings are mulched with humus or compost with a layer of 3 cm. And then also with fallen leaves by 5 cm (it must be removed in the spring, so that later it would be easier to take care of the plantings and fight weeds).

Popular questions and answers

Answered our questions about growing garlic agronomist-breeder Svetlana Mihailova.

Sources of

1. Yakubovskaya L.D., Yakubovsky V.N., Rozhkova L.N. ABC of a summer resident // Minsk, OOO “Orakul”, OOO Lazurak, IPKA “Publicity”, 1994 – 415 p.
2. Pantielev Ya.Kh. ABC vegetable grower // M .: Kolos, 1992 – 383 p.
3. Fisenko A.N., Serpukhovitina K.A., Stolyarov A.I. Garden. Handbook // Rostov-on-Don, Rostov University Press, 1994 – 416 p.