Garlic is a source of vitamins, phytoncides and other substances that help fight diseases and strengthen the immune system. The beneficial properties of the plant made it an important crop in the Siberian climate.
Conditions in this region influence agrotechnical measures and timing. If you correctly determine when to plant, how and when to harvest winter garlic in Siberia, you can get a rich and high-quality harvest of this crop and preserve it.
Why is it important to harvest the harvest on time and correctly?
Choosing the optimal time for harvesting cultivated plants allows you to increase productivity. Both delays in harvesting and premature harvesting reduce the quantity of products obtained and deteriorate their quality.
Immature garlic is not suitable for storage - teeth that are too soft will lose moisture and dry out. Overripe heads deteriorate, fall apart, and the scales peel off, exposing the core of the cloves. The fruits lose their marketable and consumer qualities. Overripe bulbs can sprout again, which will negatively affect keeping quality. The teeth whose husks have peeled off will dry out during storage.
Harvesting products at the technological maturity of cultivated plants allows increasing productivity. The harvested vegetable will have a marketable appearance and will be suitable for sale, consumption, storage and for sowing.
If garlic is planted in the fall in Siberian conditions, the optimal time for harvesting it falls in the second half of July.
Features of winter garlic
Garlic is an annual bulbous plant that reproduces vegetatively - by cloves or aerial seed bulbs (bulbs). It can withstand frosts down to -4 °C and below. The best varieties of winter garlic for Siberia, they are perfectly preserved under the snow, but freeze in cold, snowless winters.
The growing season begins in April at a temperature of +5…+10 °C. During the formation of heads, the plant needs warmth and sun. The temperature during this period should be at least +15...+20 °C, and at the time of ripening - not lower than +20...+25 °C.
The plant is sensitive to changes in growing conditions, so it is best to use zoned varieties.The best winter varieties for Siberia are the non-shooting Novosibirsky 1 and the shooting Sibirsky. In addition, the following bolting fruitful varieties are grown for winter plantings: Alkor, SIR-10, Skif, Osenniy, Gradekovsky, Bashkirsky. Most of them are early ripening varieties. They are weak-growing, but productive.
There are some features of winter planting of garlic. It is planted after cucumbers, radishes and other early vegetables, legumes, on flat areas protected from the wind. During the period of clove germination, the plant is sensitive to moisture. If there is insufficient moisture, the heads will be small and the harvest will be small. At the same time, in the lowlands the plant rots. It does not tolerate shading, so it is planted in open and well-lit areas.
In Siberia, productive varieties for winter planting are planted from September 15 to October 5, so that the cloves take root before the cold weather, but do not have time to form leaves.
Shooting varieties produce arrows at the end of June, which are removed as they appear if the seeds are not needed. This increases the weight of the heads by 10–15%.
When is garlic harvested in Siberia?
The timing of harvesting garlic in Siberia depends on the early maturity of the selected varieties. Shooting varieties are dug up after the lower leaves turn 75% yellow and the film of the inflorescence boxes begins to crack. In such varieties, mature bulbs weigh up to 60 g. Non-shooting varieties are harvested after 2/3 of the leaves of the plant fall to the ground. The non-shooting Novosibirsk variety has mature bulbs weighing up to 35 g.
Harvesting winter garlic
You can determine when to dig up garlic experimentally by freeing several heads from the soil.The cloves in mature bulbs are well separated from each other, and the husk is easily removed. In bolting varieties there are from 4 to 10 cloves in a mature head. They are located in one row around the circumference, the weight of such a clove is up to 2 g. In non-shooting varieties, there are up to 30 cloves in mature heads. They are arranged in a spiral, forming 2-3 circles. The outer teeth are larger and are used for planting.
In Siberia, winter varieties are harvested in the second half of July (July 25 + 10 days). At this time, the seed pods begin to crack. Dry and hot weather speeds up the ripening of the crop. Another sign is that an intensively growing head leads to cracking of the soil.
When to dig up spring garlic?
Spring garlic planted in April or May takes longer to ripen than winter garlic, so it is harvested from mid-August until September 10–15. Sometimes harvesting lasts until the end of September, since the growing season of summer varieties ranges from 100 to 125 days. Harvest timing is affected by weather conditions and care during the growing process. In dry and hot summers, harvesting time shifts to early August.
Determine correctly when to harvest spring garlic, you can do it the same way as they do with winter varieties. Most summer varieties are non-shooting, so foliage is used as a guide to determine when to harvest. You should not wait for full ripening, since the harvest period often involves rainy weather. To speed up ripening, the bulbs are slightly freed from the soil.
How to clean and store garlic?
If you plan to propagate the plant by cloves, it is harvested at the usual time.If airy bulbs are needed for planting next year, several plants with large shoots and the strongest and healthiest foliage are left in the garden bed until September. When the arrow head is completely open, dig up the garlic. Next year, large round bulbs will grow from the bulbs. In Altai, dug up bulbs are sorted and the cloves are used as seed. This is how the winter varieties used are rehabilitated.
To improve the health of spring varieties, in Altai the dug up bulbs are sorted, the largest teeth are selected and they are planted at the beginning of June next year or left for the winter.
Cleaning time
The timing of garlic harvesting depends on the planting date, quality of care, climatic conditions and the growing season of the planted variety.
To control the ripening of bolting varieties, bolts are left on several plants. When they straighten, the garlic can be dug out. For non-shooting varieties of winter and summer garlic, an indicator of readiness is yellowed foliage and a soft neck of the false stem. High-quality bulbs are strong, without damage.
Cleaning must be completed 1 week in advance.
Cleaning technology
Winter garlic is harvested in dry, hot weather. 2-3 weeks before harvesting, the plants stop watering. Holding them by the tops, dig them up with a pitchfork and then carefully pull them out. For long-term storage, when digging, it is important not to disturb the integrity of the heads or damage the shell. Therefore, the soil is carefully removed by hand, without damaging the roots and husks.
This is a crop that does not need to ripen in the sun. The harvest must be immediately removed under a canopy along with foliage and roots. Here it is kept for 2–3 weeks.Only then is it cut at a distance of 2–3 cm from the head or 7–8 if you plan to knit bunches. The roots are trimmed, leaving no more than 2 cm.
The fruits can be washed, but when drying, the heads should not touch each other.
Storage
After collecting and drying, the heads are sent for storage. There are two ways to do this - warm and cold. For the latter, a cellar or refrigerator is used. The temperature at the storage location should not exceed +5 °C. For the warm method, the bulbs are placed in fabric bags or cardboard boxes. Then they are placed in a dark, cool place: in the pantry, in the attic. The main conditions are a temperature not higher than +15 ° C and good air exchange.
For planting material, a combination of two methods of storing warm and cold is permissible. In this case, the heads are kept warm for 6 months, and then they are lowered into the cellar or placed in the refrigerator for 2 months. This method stimulates growth.
Seasonal Tips
The time for planting spring garlic in 2018 is approaching, and the winter vegetable is already in the ground, and the correct choice of harvest date will affect its preservation. The warm and cold seasons of 2018, although they promise to be warmer than last year, will nevertheless not be hot enough to produce a good harvest. At the same time, both the warm and cold seasons promise to be wet, with sufficient precipitation.
Moon calendar
It is possible to harvest garlic according to the lunar calendar. Often the waning phase of the moon is chosen for this. Taking into account the fact that to fully ripen, winter garlic must remain in the garden until mid-July, and spring garlic until mid-August, according to the lunar calendar in 2018, garlic can be harvested:
- In July: 5–7, 15, 16, 19, 20, 23, 24.
- In August: 1–3, 11, 12, 15, 16, 29, 30.
Country life hack
The Siberian region is vast; climatic and agronomic conditions in Eastern and Western Siberia are somewhat different.
In Western Siberia, for example, in Novosibirsk, winter vegetables produce a good harvest. The critical periods are cool May and June. Snowless frosts occur in November, so planting must be completed before October 5th. At the same time, there are no winters with little snow here.
The following planting scheme is used. 3 days before planting, water the soil generously. On the day of planting, furrows are made up to 20 cm deep, a layer of sand 3 cm thick is poured onto the bottom. The cloves are planted in it. To protect them from frost, the bulbs are planted to a depth of 25 cm. In spring, garlic is planted in early May, then harvesting time falls in mid-August.
Another life hack is to plant garlic in 2 tiers at a depth of 20 and 12 cm, which allows you to harvest a double harvest. Dig out the bulbs with a fork or flat tines and leave them in the air for only 10 days, and then take them indoors.
In Irkutsk and other regions of Eastern Siberia, garlic is planted in mid-September - 40 days before the onset of persistent cold weather. They often sow on top winter oats. Due to late spring, harvesting dates are shifted to mid-August. In order to delay ripening for 2-3 weeks and allow the winter garlic bulb to grow a little more, the leaves are tied in a knot in early July.
