Planting dates for winter garlic
When to plant garlic before winter depends primarily on the planned planting depth.
Planting garlic before winter to a depth of 3-5 cm
Most often, garlic is buried 3-5 cm. In this case, planting is carried out 2-3 weeks before the first frost .
In the middle zone, this period usually falls on the 20th of September - the 10th of October . In warmer regions with mild climates this is November .
Planting winter garlic to a depth of 10-15 cm
Many gardeners prefer to plant garlic at greater depths; with this method, it takes root better and tolerates winter frosts more easily. When to plant winter garlic during deep planting? In the middle zone - already from the last ten days of August to the second ten days of October .
Do I need to soak garlic before planting for the winter?
To ensure that the crop is not painful after germination, garlic is disinfected with special preparations before planting before winter.
- Why is processing needed?
Garlic is one of the foods that have antibacterial properties. However, like any type of vegetable, it requires pre-treatment before planting.
The use of special compounds allows you to eliminate the larvae of harmful insects that can tolerate low temperatures. Treatment is also necessary to reduce the risk of diseases after the crop sprouts.
Attention! Untreated garlic begins to turn yellow after germination and may dry out.
- Is it necessary to disinfect
The disinfection procedure is not necessary. However, with the help of pre-sowing preparation, the gardener reduces the risk of spoilage. Disinfected slices sprout in greater numbers.
- How long should you soak?
To prepare planting material, you need to know how much the solution can be used. The average soaking period is 12 hours. A longer period may negatively affect the condition of the teeth.
How to distinguish winter garlic from spring garlic
Naturally, the main difference is that winter garlic is planted before winter, and spring garlic - in the spring.
In addition, they can be distinguished by external features.
| Winter garlic | Spring garlic |
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Tips for gardeners
The qualitative and quantitative indicators of the harvest largely depend on the quality of the seed. For pre-winter sowing, only winter varieties are suitable, which are easily recognized by their appearance - they consist of a rod and 4-10 cloves located around it. Preparing garlic for planting in the fall involves:
- calibration – selection of large and undamaged cloves;
- their etching with highly diluted potassium permanganate;
- removing their dried bottom.
By putting into practice the instructions on how to prepare a bed for winter garlic in the fall, even an inexperienced vegetable grower will reap a good harvest.
After which you can plant garlic before winter
It is better if tomatoes, cucumbers, and legumes . early cabbage, zucchini, and pumpkin can be good predecessors of garlic . In this case, the soil for garlic will be maximally saturated with organic fertilizers.
It is not recommended to plant garlic in areas that were occupied by potatoes or onions. This is due to the fact that there is a high risk of “exchange” of diseases between these crops (nematode, fusarium, etc.).
You should also not plant winter garlic in areas where manure was applied this year: garlic will produce abundant tops, loose heads and will be less resistant to fungal diseases.
Landing
Garlic is planted in a garden bed in moist soil, the distance between the holes is 5-8 cm, the depth is 4-12 cm. When planting the cloves, they are placed bottom down and sprinkled with fertile soil mixture on top. Water again and cover with mulch - pine needles, sawdust, peat or straw, which should not be removed even in the spring, since it allows you to retain moisture in the soil and protect the seedlings from return frosts. In winter, garlic ridges are additionally covered with snow.
Attention! Deep planting prevents garlic from freezing, promoting rooting.
How to prepare a bed for winter garlic?
Preparations for planting winter garlic begin early.
Preparing the soil for garlic
At the end of August - beginning of September , it is necessary to fertilize the soil: for each square meter of area add 10 kg of humus, 1 cup of chalk and 2 cups of ash, add 2 tbsp. potassium sulfate and 1 tbsp. superphosphate. Having distributed all the components evenly on the soil, you need to dig it up. The digging depth should be at least 20 cm.
Forming a bed
An ideal bed for winter garlic will be up to 1 m wide and up to 25 cm high.
Allow time for the soil to shrink
Next, the bed is left alone until the soil settles after digging. If there is little precipitation in September, then for better shrinkage you can water the prepared bed several times.
Some gardeners are in a hurry and plant garlic immediately after digging. This affects the growth and development of the plant: garlic cloves end up deep in the ground when the soil settles, and in the spring the time for shoot germination increases and the crop yield decreases.
We cultivate the soil
To prevent garlic diseases, treat the soil with a 1% solution of copper sulfate (dilute 1 tablespoon of the substance in 10 liters of water). Using a watering can, pour the resulting solution over the entire area of the bed. Then cover it with film.
On average, 2 square meters will require 1 bucket of this solution.
On the eve of planting garlic, scatter urea at the rate of 10-20 g per square meter and water the soil with water.
- Why is copper sulfate used in the garden?
Copper sulfate has been successfully used in dacha farming for many decades. What is this drug and how to use it?
- Urea: features of fertilizer and its use
Everything you wanted to know about the most famous nitrogen fertilizer.
Do I need to soak garlic before planting in spring?
Spring planting of the crop requires processing of the material in a manganese solution. This will promote the rapid appearance of sprouts.
Also, spring treatment helps reduce the risk of diseases. Experienced gardeners recommend treating seeds before spring planting, since during the winter the cloves may be attacked by pests that lay their larvae inside. Thus, after germination and head formation, the product may be subject to spoilage.
Planting winter garlic has a large number of advantages, which will further contribute to the appearance of a large harvest. In order for the crop to quickly sprout, it is necessary to properly process the planting material and observe all the features of planting in open ground.
How to prepare garlic for planting
We have already figured out how to prepare a bed for planting and when to plant winter garlic; now it’s time to decide how to prepare the planting material itself.
Taking the head apart
Firstly, it is important to carefully examine the garlic and disassemble the heads into individual cloves, from which you need to select the largest, healthiest ones for planting.
If you take planting material from non-shooting varieties of garlic, use only the cloves of the outer tier.
Disinfect garlic
The selected cloves must be soaked for a day in a 0.1% solution of potassium permanganate or a 1% solution of copper sulfate.
After these procedures, garlic can be considered ready for winter planting.
How to treat garlic in the fall against diseases and pests
Processing garlic allows the crop to survive the winter and reduce the risk of disease. Disinfection can be carried out with various preparations, depending on the individual preferences of the gardener.
Potassium permangantsovka
The use of manganese can effectively combat various types of diseases. For processing before sowing garlic, you need to prepare a light solution.
Soaking garlic in manganese
Place the teeth in the liquid so that the solution is 2-3 cm above the level of the planting material. Leave the cloves for 12 hours, then dry and use for planting in open ground. The soil can be treated with this solution during planting.
Proper planting of single clove winter garlic
Now we proceed directly to the technology of planting garlic in the fall.
Making holes
On a bed prepared in advance, we outline a place for planting winter garlic. To do this, use a stick to make holes in the ground at a distance of 10 cm from each other. The depth of the holes is from 3 to 15 cm , depending on the method and time of planting. We already discussed this at the beginning of the article.
The distance between rows is 20-25 cm .
Burying the garlic cloves
Place the garlic cloves into the holes.
You should not press them into the ground, as this delays root formation.
We cultivate the land
If the soil is dry, you can spill it with a pink solution of potassium permanganate.
Filling up the holes
The holes must be covered with rotted compost.
Mulching the bed
The optimal layer of mulch is about 10 cm. For mulching, it is best to use peat, pine needles or spruce branches, and fallen leaves.
In warm regions, there is no need to mulch winter garlic.
Soil acidity
When preparing a bed for planting garlic in the fall, you should pay special attention to the pH of the soil. For good growth and development, this crop requires organic-rich, light sandy loam soil with an acidity of at least 5.6. When cultivating bulbs on soils with high acidity, preparing the land for garlic in the fall involves carrying out additional work to deoxidize them by adding one of the alkaline components to the soil:
- fluffies;
- calcium nitrate;
- ash;
- chalk;
- dolomite flour;
- calcareous tuff.
Deoxidation of loamy soil should be carried out every 7 years, sandy loam - every 5 years.
An alternative way to plant winter garlic
There is another, less usual approach to preparing a bed for winter garlic.
We apply fertilizers for planting garlic
At the end of August, it is necessary to apply fertilizer to the garden bed:
- potassium sulfate (2 tbsp per sq.m.);
- superphosphate (1 tbsp per sq.m.);
- wood ash (2 cups per sq.m.);
- chalk (1 cup per square meter);
- humus (10 kg per sq.m.).
All fertilizers are applied dry and scattered over the soil surface.
We cultivate the soil
After this, the ground must be thoroughly dug up. Again, to speed up shrinkage, water the soil generously. If the weather is rainy, watering is not necessary.
Filling the bed
First of all, along the prepared bed, 35-45 cm from it, you need to sow rows of peas, oats and white mustard.
We cultivate the soil before planting
1-2 days before planting garlic, it is necessary to apply fertilizing. To do this, urea is added to the beds (10-20 g per sq.m.). Then the ground is generously watered.
Planting winter garlic
In early October, when the sprouts of peas and oats reach 20 cm or more, it is time to plant garlic between their green rows.
This method of winter planting garlic is quite effective. The greens will retain snow in the beds, so that in winter the garlic will be covered with a snow coat, and in the spring it will receive sufficient moisture.
Whatever technology for planting and growing winter garlic you choose, we hope you will be able to get a good harvest next summer. To do this, take into account our list of the Best varieties of winter garlic.
Soil preparation
Preparation of the optimal fertile substrate begins in August. Before planting garlic, the soil is fertilized, disinfected, and plowed. It is not advisable for any crops to grow on the site during the year of sowing. The earth must rest.
Garlic crops have a poorly developed root system and require abundant feeding. To enrich the soil, a mixture of organic and mineral fertilizers is used. Dolomite flour deoxidizes the soil and stimulates the absorption of nutrients by the plant.
What kind of soil does garlic like: determining soil acidity
To grow a good harvest, you need to know what kind of soil garlic likes before winter. The soil should be low in acidity. To determine its level, you can spill a little vinegar into the substrate. The soil can become sour if it hisses; a substrate with an alkaline composition behaves in the same way. The lack of reaction to vinegar indicates increased acidity of the soil.
If there are a lot of weeds growing on the site, this is a sure sign of strong acidity of the soil composition. The soil for garlic is deoxidized with dolomite flour, chalk, and ash.
Soil disinfection
To properly prepare a bed for garlic for planting in the fall, you need to know how to disinfect the soil from putrefactive bacteria after the previous harvest.
- Soil disinfection is carried out using a solution of copper sulfate. It is stirred in a proportion of 1 tbsp. l. for 10 l. water.
- Each square meter of the garden needs to be treated with 1 liter of the mixture.
- Allow the soil to dry a little and cover the area with film or thick spunbond before planting.
You should know! The soil is prepared 1.5 months before planting garlic. The soil needs to be dug up, disinfected and fertilized. The planting soil must settle, otherwise the garlic cloves will deepen too much during the growing season.
Application of mineral fertilizers
During preparation and 2 weeks before planting garlic, potassium and phosphorus mineral fertilizers are applied to the ground. It is not advisable to use nitrogen in the fall; it is washed out of the soil with meltwater in the spring. It is useful to apply ammonium nitrate after frost to stimulate the growth of shoots and the root system of garlic.
The plant needs mineral supplements for the formation of green mass, a set of taste qualities, and the growth of large heads with a large number of cloves. Nitrogen and potassium supplements are especially important before sowing. Nitrogen is applied only after germination.
Applying fertilizers when preparing the soil for autumn planting of garlic
Do you need manure and humus?
Fresh manure is not used for fertilizer; it worsens the structure of the fruit, the teeth become loose and small. Rotted manure that has lain for at least 4 years is brought in. With the help of humus you can fertilize the soil. Organic matter makes the soil the way garlic likes it. To fertilize 1 meter of plantings, use 1 bucket of humus. It is useful to fertilize crops that grew before garlic with organic matter.
For reference! Garlic seedlings are covered with rotted manure to protect them from freezing. Mulch made from sawdust, wood chips, or hay is suitable as a cover.
Dolomite flour for garlic in autumn
When preparing a site for planting, the composition of the soil is checked. Garlic needs loam or sandy mixture. Heavy soil is limed with dolomite flour. It is important to reduce acidity, because in acidic soils the vegetable does not absorb mineral fertilizers well, develops slowly and does not gain taste.
Preparing a bed for autumn planting of garlic
The procedure for preparing a garlic bed in the fall involves performing several sequential operations.
✔ Determine the landing location
Follow several rules:
- A flat area that is well lit by the sun is allocated for garlic.
- The most advantageous direction of the future bed is oriented from north to south.
- This crop cannot be planted in lowlands with aquifers located close to the surface, where excessive accumulation of moisture is observed in the spring.
