Planting garlic before winter ⋆ 👨‍🌾 Farmer-online ⋆

It is better to think about growing garlic in the fall. And planting it before winter is a good idea, promising a considerable harvest of a bulbous plant. But planting is a multi-stage process: you need to choose the right time, and prepare the ground, and take into account the scheme, and not make a mistake with the subsequent departure.

Optimal terms for different regions

Garlic is considered a cold-resistant plant, but it is still best to plant it 3-4 weeks before the first real cold weather. The cloves must grow roots, adapt, but not yet have time to germinate – this is how you need to guess with the landing. In this form, the bulbous will survive the winter calmly, and in the spring they will grow.

Find out when to plant by region.

In the middle lane, the optimal period for planting comes in the 20th of September and lasts until mid-October. And it is better to choose those days when heat is no longer predicted, but there may be night frosts. But not every year such days coincide with the calendar, and therefore the date of planting garlic may change from year to year.
In the Moscow region, the landing dates practically coincide with the dates that are typical for the middle zone.
In the Urals, garlic is planted predictably earlier; in Siberia, they also think about it at the beginning of the first autumn month.
In the southern regions, you can safely plant garlic in open ground in November – in the south this month, the winter is not so severe that the cloves die in the freezing soil.

The optimal soil temperature for planting garlic is + 10–12 degrees (even if it is slightly lower). But garlic is definitely not planted in frozen ground.

The best predecessors

Garden crops should alternate in time and space. This is a special, unshakable condition for obtaining a quality crop of any plant on the site. The best plants of the previous season for winter garlic will be legumes, cucumbers, zucchini and melons. That is, you can definitely plant garlic after pumpkin, peas, beans and squash. A garden bed is also suitable, where white cabbage, as well as beets and peppers, used to grow. But unsuccessful predecessors can be called radishes, carrots, potatoes, onions, herbs and, finally, garlic itself. If at one time the last one grew at the place of the proposed landing, then the difference between the landings should be at least 3 years, and preferably 4 or more.

It is also important to say about the neighborhood: if the cultures are correct, they will only contribute to a better harvest of garlic, while the bad ones will inhibit the growth of the latter. And garlic itself is considered a very beneficial neighbor for many plants: thanks to its fungicidal and bactericidal properties, it will protect other crops from pests. It is good if horseradish or calendula grows next to garlic, as well as tomatoes or chicory. Garlic will prevent the appearance of pests on strawberries, carrots, beets, cucumbers, tomatoes.

Important! Garlic itself is an excellent natural repeller of carrot flies, bears, as well as aphids, spider mites, Colorado potato beetles, and whiteflies. It also makes pathogens of late blight and rust more harmless.

Prepare

You need to prepare both the culture itself for planting and the place.

seed

Only winter varieties of garlic are suitable for planting. It (unlike, for example, spring garlic) will have large uniform cloves arranged in one row around the arrow. It’s a darting garlic that shoots out a bright green tube with buds. And small bulbs are already ripening on it, they can also be planted in the fall in the garden. The variety of garlic should be suitable for the climate. Ukrainian breeding varieties, for example, are considered very successful: “Ukrainian White”, “Lyubasha”, “Spas”, “Purple Kharkiv”. But Skif, Anniversary 07, Reliable, Gribovsky, Messidor (Russia and the Netherlands) will also be good. The taste of the presented varieties is expressive, resistance to diseases is high, keeping quality is good.

And it is not difficult to prepare the selected variety of garlic: sort out, discard sick, very small, poor-quality cloves with superficial injuries. Each clove must be separated from the others, just do it delicately so that the outer shell and the bottom are not injured. The latter can be cleaned so that the material takes root better – just be careful not to damage the scales. And now the selected healthy specimens need to be soaked in the compositions for a couple of hours, and in several at once.

What are these solutions?

ash (0,4 kg of ash per 2 liters of hot water, half an hour soaking is enough);
manganese (it should be dark pink);
salt (3 tablespoons per 5 liters of warm water);
copper sulfate (1 teaspoon per 1 bucket of water);
“Fitosporina-M”.

Everyone does this so that the selected material is not only viable, but also disinfected, highly resistant, and ready for wintering. Then it must be dried well.

Place

This culture prefers sunlight, therefore it should be planted only in an open area, well lit throughout the day. In a shaded area, a proper harvest cannot be obtained. From the north, the place should be sheltered from winds and drafts. It’s great if it’s a small hill, for example, a warm bed, or maybe a gentle hill. But if you plant garlic in a lowland, then heavy rainfall and spring snowmelt will lead to the fact that water will collect there, and this is fraught with rotting of the culture.

Wetlands for planting should also be avoided, as well as waterlogged areas of the garden. With high groundwater, the garlic harvest will also not be optimal. Attention! If manure was brought into the ground this season, it is impossible to plant garlic there. A plant in such soil will actively begin to grow tops, which is why the heads of garlic will be too loose and small, and also completely unstable in front of fungi.

What should be the ideal soil for garlic:

loose;
with neutral acidity (pH 6,5–7);
fertile;
breathable;
permeable.

Garlic will grow best on light loam. Where the soil is heavy and clayey, it will not develop well. Acidic and alkaline soils are also not suitable for garlic. It is necessary to prepare the soil for planting at least a month before the event itself. This time is enough for the soil to naturally settle. It is better if the bed is located from north to south.

Here is a plan for preparation.

Remove the site – all debris, stones, weeds, right with the roots, must be removed from the territory.
Apply fertilizer – spread the fertilizer evenly over the entire surface. It is better if it is organic along with mineral compounds, that is, a tandem. You can fertilize the earth with humus with the calculation of 1 bucket per square. You can add 200 g of wood ash per square. Or 20 g of superphosphate per square meter. You can sprinkle potassium sulfate, also 20 g. And this potash fertilizer is perhaps the best: it contains sulfur, and if it is deficient, garlic will not grow normally. Phosphorus and potassium compounds are, in principle, very important for garlic: they increase its cold resistance, and saturate the plant heads with sugars.
Optimize the soil – for example, if it is heavy and clayey, sand and low-lying peat will have to be added to it, a bucket per square. If neither is possible, sand is the priority. If the soil is light and sandy, it is necessary to add humus or compost and lowland peat. If acidic, wood ash is introduced into the soil, you can replace it with dolomite flour (200 g per square). If the soil is alkaline, riding sour peat will do, 1 bucket per square.
Dig up – about a spade bayonet, 30 centimeters.
Loosen with a rake – after fertilizing this must be done.
To form a bed is better if it is high: 25 cm high and 1 m wide. If the garden is in a lowland, a high bed is required.
Water – it is necessary to moisten the earth from a watering can. If there is not enough rain while the earth is shrinking, it is better to organize independent watering.
To secure the soil – it will be something akin to the prevention of fungal diseases. The soil is watered with a fungicide or a solution of copper sulfate, 1 tablespoon per 10 liters of water.

Well, the material for sowing is ready, the garden bed too, you can proceed.

Can you plant spring garlic?

You should not do this, since spring varieties are intended specifically for spring planting. They are far more frost tolerant. There are options when such an experiment will be successful, but they are rather troublesome. At a minimum, you will have to use straw shelter, other organic matter.

How to distinguish spring garlic from winter garlic: its head does not have a stem, but consists of two and a half dozen small cloves, which are arranged in several rows. The taste of such garlic is much softer, in winter it is more pungent, burning. But the keeping quality is perhaps better – it is quietly stored all winter until spring (sometimes even longer).

Rules and landing scheme

This is always a clear algorithm, step-by-step and quite specific – any discrepancies are already fraught with negative features of the development and growth of the plant. Learn how to properly plant garlic before winter.

Make landing holes, grooves. You can use a small spatula if that’s more convenient. The distance between the pits should be 10 cm, and the row spacing should be at least 20 cm. But the rows should be strictly parallel. If you are not sure that everything will work out smoothly, it is better to pull the rope for the correct orientation. The optimal depth of the landing hole is 8-9 cm. If you don’t want to make holes, let there be grooves.
Plant the teeth in the formed pits or grooves. Landing should be exclusively bottom down. It is not necessary to press the teeth into the ground, because then the ground under them will be compacted, and their rooting will already be problematic. Between the teeth it is necessary to maintain a distance of 10 cm. The holes must be made with the same interval.
Cover the teeth with soil. You can specially bring fertile soil for this.
Water the soil. It can be ordinary water, or maybe in addition to it “Fitosporin-M”, which will be an excellent prevention of fungal diseases.
Mulch the garden. Suitable for this as peat, and fallen leaves, and humus. The mulch layer is quite high – 10 cm.

Nothing complicated, obviously, in landing there. And instead of cloves, by the way, you can use the bulbs already mentioned above, which are formed on the arrows of the culture. Strong and large cloves will grow from them next season, which will also become good planting material. In addition, there is no hassle with bulbs in terms of correcting the timing, everything is exactly the same as with traditional planting.

But you don’t need to make holes in the garden – grooves will be required. And the bulbs are planted to a depth of 2 cm.

Does it need to be watered after planting?

Yes, this is a mandatory item of the whole operation. And if there is no precipitation within a week and a half after planting the garlic, then a couple of times you will have to organize watering on your own. This will allow the garlic to root faster. But the main features of caring for garlic are not watering, but protection from frost. It is for this that the soil is mulched, creating a warm natural pillow. But if it happens in the southern region, such a measure can be safely abandoned.

And when the first frosts come, in addition to mulch, you can cover the bed with straw or spruce branches. In the spring, as soon as the temperature becomes positive, the covering material must be immediately removed so that last year’s (calendarly it turns out like this) garlic does not sag. In principle, this is the end of all pre-spring care. Everything else awaits garlic in the spring. After the earth dries out, it will be watered, loosened, weeds will be shed. And then everything is already according to the traditional scheme of spring garden work.