When to harvest winter garlic. Correct timing when it is better to remove winter garlic from the garden for storage How to know that winter garlic is ripe

Harvest time is approaching, and many gardeners are concerned about the question: when to harvest garlic in 2019 according to the lunar calendar? If the quality of the crop depends on timely planting, then the correct harvest date affects the duration of its storage. In addition to the lunar calendar, you need to take into account external signs of maturity and weather conditions. Today we will look at all this in detail.

When to harvest garlic in 2019 according to the Moon?

Many believe that all crops should certainly be collected on the dates allotted for this according to the calendar created on the basis of the movement of the Earth's satellite. If you hold this view, check out the dates indicated for 2019:

• July: 5-7, 15, 16, 19, 20, 23, 24;
• August: 1-3, 11, 12, 15, 16, 29, 30.

Harvesting by signs of ripening

Even those who accept the lunar calendar as a faithful assistant in determining the timing of the harvest cannot deny that paramount attention should be paid to the degree of maturity of the crop. If the garlic heads do not have time to fully ripen, you will have to spend time bringing them to the desired state after digging them up. But if the harvest occurs too late, the garlic will begin to grow, and in this case it will not be possible to store it for a long time. It will deteriorate before next year.

The following signs will help determine the degree of garlic ripeness:

• the upper leaves turn yellow and droop downwards;
• the lower leaves dry out;
• the heads are dense, with two or three shells;
• the cloves separate well.

To determine the condition of the heads you will have to dig out one or two to check. The fact that the garlic is not ripe will be indicated by its softness, and signs of overripeness will be cracked scales or separating cloves. If you do not have a goal of long-term storage, then you don’t have to think about the timing of collection at all.

Winter garlic is usually harvested in mid-June, spring garlic - in late August or early autumn. If the summer turns out to be rainy, ripening will occur faster, if it is dry, you will have to wait longer. In the calculations, it is important to take into account the growing season of a particular variety.

Features of garlic harvesting

So, we’ve sorted out the timing, now let’s move on to considering the basic rules for preparing for harvesting and actually digging it up.

Preparation

To prepare for harvesting garlic, agronomists advise doing the following:

• A month before the planned harvest, completely stop watering the garlic. This way it will ripen better and the occurrence of diseases will be minimized.
• Along with the cessation of watering, the arrows are broken off.
• When the bulb begins to grow, you need to tie the garlic leaves into a knot. This way the plant will stop wasting nutrients on greens, and will direct them to the development of root crops.

Cleaning

There are some rules for harvesting garlic:

• Harvest garlic in warm, dry weather. If you still have to dig up the crop in the rain, you will have to pay special attention to drying. Garlic collected in the rain will not store well.
• Do not pull out ripe bulbs by hand - use an appropriate tool. However, you should be careful, as damaged garlic will not be stored for long.
• Immediately after removing the garlic from the ground, dry it thoroughly. In warm sunny weather this will take only one or two days. This can be done directly in the beds. To protect the crop from dew, hide it indoors at night or cover it with plastic.
• Storing garlic for storage should be preceded by trimming the leaves. Leave the trunks if you plan to knit garlic braids.

Rules for storing garlic after harvesting

The collected garlic should be sorted: undamaged bulbs will be stored, but those with even the slightest damage should be eaten without delay. When choosing a place to store your crops, it is important to think about three main points:

1. Temperature. In this regard, garlic is not picky: it tolerates warm and cool temperatures well. However, coolness is more suitable for winter crops - +2...+4 °C.
2. Humidity. The optimal moisture content in the air is 60-80%. If there is much more of it, the garlic may get sick, and if it is less, the cloves will quickly lose their juiciness.
3. Ventilation. Particular attention should be paid to air exchange in the room chosen for storing garlic. Poor ventilation will lead to illness and loss of elasticity.

In a city apartment, suitable places to store garlic may be a refrigerator, a cool pantry, or an insulated but not heated balcony. It is very important to protect valuable bulbs from light.

Methods for storing garlic

Inventive housewives have come up with many ways to store garlic throughout the winter. The most successful of them are:

• First, braids or wreaths are woven, weaving rope or wire inside, or tying 10-15 bulbs together. Products are hung on walls or on stretched ropes.
• Place the garlic in nets or nylon stockings and hang them up.
• The harvested crop is poured into wooden boxes or baskets with holes for ventilation and left in a well-ventilated area.
• Garlic is poured into boxes without holes or glass jars, sprinkled with large salt crystals.
• Peeled garlic cloves are placed in a sterilized jar and filled with vegetable oil. The container is placed in the refrigerator.

Now you know a comprehensive answer to the question: when to harvest garlic in 2019 according to the lunar calendar? You should focus not only on the location of the Moon, but also on the growing season of the planted variety, weather conditions and signs of maturity. When you notice the leaves starting to turn yellow and dry out, dig up one or two bulbs to check their maturity. If it is not soft, the teeth and the upper shell separate well, then the time has come.

– winter garlic. With this method of planting, it grows with large, evenly spaced teeth. In turn, summer garlic is superior to winter garlic in terms of shelf life. Summer garlic (spring) is planted in early spring and harvested starting in the second half of August. But it is not enough to plant and grow a good harvest of garlic on time; it is important to preserve it longer, and for this you need to know the timing, signs of ripening, rules for harvesting and storing this popular vegetable crop.

Why is it important to harvest the harvest on time and correctly?

• If you dig up garlic ahead of time, its cloves will be more soft, although they can “ripen” if properly dried. Some gardeners deliberately dig a little earlier, allowing the garlic to ripen while drying. It is better to remove slightly underripe garlic than overripe garlic.
• When garlic is allowed to overripe, it can re-grow, sprouting shoots and destroying its scales, which will then negatively affect its keeping quality.
• If you delay digging up the garlic, the outer scales crack and “clean cloves” (without husks) form - such bulbs dry out and spoil by January.

Harvesting winter garlic

The classic period for full ripening of winter garlic is approximately 100 days after the first shoots appear. This period corresponds to the third ten days of July - early August, depending on climatic conditions. It should be noted that some gardeners harvest garlic according to...

Signs of ripening winter garlic

Harvesting summer garlic

Summer garlic ripens from the second half of August to September. During this period, it is necessary to carefully monitor the harvest, looking for signs of ripening.

Signs of ripening summer garlic

• The main sign that summer garlic is ready for harvest is lodging and yellowing of the stems and leaves.
• The root collar dries out.
• If you dig up the bulb and carefully examine it, the head should be fully formed with clearly defined cloves. The scales of a ripe onion are dense and dried out.

How to clean and store garlic

Garlic is harvested in dry weather. After cutting off the arrows, if it is winter garlic, lightly dig up the bulbs, then carefully remove them from the ground and carefully shake off the remaining soil. The removed garlic is placed in rows to dry. If the weather is dry, then the decomposed crop is left outside for several days, removing it at night. In wet weather, hide under a canopy.

In case of prolonged drought, it is better to moisten the soil before harvesting. When shaking off dry lumps of earth, the roots may be torn off along with the bottom.

It is important not to throw the garlic, but to fold and move it carefully, avoiding possible dents, in order to reduce the risk of various rots.

Then the garlic must be laid out in one layer in a well-ventilated room for final drying for 2 to 3 weeks. The next step is to carefully cut off the stems and roots. The stem is cut so that at least a centimeter remains. The roots are cut off without touching the bottom of the bulb, otherwise there is a high risk of disease.

Garlic is grown in almost every country, as this vegetable is often used in cooking for preparing various dishes. Before you start planting this plant, you should figure out when garlic is harvested in the middle zone. Also, before planting, you will have to determine the best varieties of garlic for the middle zone.

Not all vegetable growers know when to dig up summer garlic in the middle zone. Harvesting is often done in mid-summer - July 15–20. By this time, all the fruits have time to form and fully ripen. To ensure the maturity of a vegetable, carefully examine its appearance. The main sign of garlic ripeness is massive yellowing of the leaves. Therefore, if the lower leaves gradually turn yellow, you can safely begin harvesting. The yellow color of the leaves indicates that all the nutritional components from them have passed into the fruit.

However, it is not only maturity that determines when to harvest spring garlic for further storage.

How does garlic harvesting depend on the weather?

To accurately determine , When digging up garlic in central Russia, you need to familiarize yourself with the weather for the coming days. After all, the timing of harvest directly depends on weather conditions.

It is recommended to collect garlic heads on clear and sunny days with perfectly dry soil. Of course, in the Tula region, when they dig up garlic, it can rain at any moment. In this case, you will have to postpone harvesting until the next day. However, this does not stop some, and even in a rainstorm they do not stop harvesting ripe garlic heads from the garden.

Some people are interested in when to harvest garlic in Smolensk and in what weather to do it? In this case, the harvest time also depends on weather conditions. If, after all the fruits have ripened, the weather remains warm and sunny, then you can begin harvesting. After the rains, you will have to postpone the garlic harvest until the soil dries completely.

Cleaning according to the lunar calendar

When the heads are fully ripe, it is recommended to consult the lunar calendar to choose the most favorable date for digging up garlic. The most favorable days for harvesting vegetables in July are 5–8, 10–15, 20–25. Sometimes the ripening of fruits is delayed until August and you have to choose favorable days of this month. At the end of summer, you need to clean the heads on the 3rd–5th, 10th–13th, 15th–17th and 30th.

Also in the lunar calendar there are dates for harvesting fruits, selected depending on the characteristics of the movement of the earth’s satellite. In this case, the vegetable is dug up on July 5, 10, 16, 21, 24 and 25. In August, it is better to harvest the ripe crop on the 3rd, 10th, 17th, 28th and 29th.

When determining the time for harvesting vegetables from the garden, you should not rely only on the lunar calendar. You also need to carefully examine the garlic bushes. The garlic heads should be fully ripe and ready to harvest.

Harvesting winter garlic

Before you start harvesting winter garlic, you need to figure out when to dig it up in the middle zone. They do this in the second half of July or early August. It is easier to determine the exact timing of the harvest if the date of planting the garlic was recorded in advance. In this case, bulb harvesting begins 100 days after the first shoots appear. You should not leave the plant in the garden any longer, as it will become overripe.

Signs of overripeness include the bursting of scales that cover the garlic head. Also, on overripe vegetables, the teeth fall apart, and the bulb puts out young roots for further germination. It is better to harvest the entire crop before it becomes overripe, since overripe heads are poorly stored.

Winter garlic is harvested only in clear, dry and windless weather. To do this, all bushes with ripe heads are carefully dug up with a pitchfork or a bayonet shovel, after which the heads are removed from the ground. They must be removed from the ground carefully so as not to accidentally damage the fruits. It is necessary to get rid of the soil on the surface of the garlic, since it is because of it that it rots. You also need to be careful when getting rid of the soil so that the heads do not get damaged and start to rot because of this.

How to properly harvest garlic and prepare it for storage?

Before harvesting garlic in the middle zone, you need to familiarize yourself with the harvesting features of this vegetable crop. As in the case of winter garlic, it is necessary to properly harvest garlic only on warm summer days in the morning or evening. It is very important that the soil is dry, as this greatly simplifies the process of digging up the garlic heads.

Having dug up all the fruits, they are cleaned of adhering soil, laid out on the site and covered with leaves so that the root crop does not get burned. The heads are left outside for 3–4 days or transferred to a well-ventilated area for further storage of the harvested crop.

Some people immediately cut off the leaves of the dug up bushes, but this should not be done. Within 5–7 days, assimilants are present in the leaves, which eventually enter the fruits. Therefore, the top leaves are cut off after they have completely drained. The only thing that gets rid of right away is the soil and roots. The soil is removed from the surface of the plant carefully so as not to accidentally damage the outer skin.

Improperly collected soil reduces the shelf life of the collected heads and contributes to their rotting.

Having figured out when to harvest winter garlic in the Nizhny Novgorod region and other regions of the central zone, you should familiarize yourself with tips for storing the crop.

All varieties of winter garlic in central Russia are stored:

• In pigtails. This is the most common harvest storage method used by many gardeners. Garlic braids are created by using dried stems with leaves. When all the plants are collected in braids, they are tied up in a closet, pantry or other dark place.
• In grids. Nets are also used to save space when storing harvested garlic. Using this method of storing crops, you will have to regularly inspect the harvested crop to get rid of spoiled heads.
• In flour. Often, ordinary flour is used to store garlic, which absorbs excess moisture. To store the crop in this way, the bottom of the saucepan is covered with flour, and the heads are laid on top. After this, the vegetable is covered with a layer of flour on top and covered with a lid.
• In bags. Bags made from natural materials are often used to create an ideal place for storing vegetables. Before placing the harvest in bags, it is treated with salt to protect the fruit from pests and diseases.

By mid-summer, many summer residents dig up large heads of winter garlic, and by the beginning of September, spring varieties of the crop also ripen. How to properly harvest elastic bulbs in order to keep them fresh until next summer, storing them for long-term storage in a vegetable storehouse or cellar?

Experienced summer residents, from the Onion family for many years, nicknamed “the royal seasoning for food” back in the time of Pythagoras, are happy to reveal their secrets for harvesting garlic. Compliance with the simple and easy to follow rules given below will allow even a novice vegetable grower, gardener and summer resident to preserve the garlic harvest.

Garlic harvesting time

One of the main rules, the strict implementation of which guarantees high shelf life of the bulbs at , is the timely digging of the bulbs.

• Unripe heads, with teeth that are not fully formed and have not gained a sufficient mass of pulp, can be used for culinary purposes immediately, but they are not suitable for storing for storage, nor as planting material.
• And here keeping the garlic in the ground even for several days, you can end up harvesting bulbs with cracked outer scales and cloves falling apart in different directions. Such garlic is also not suitable for storage or as planting material for winter or early spring sowing, and can only be used in the next 40-50 days for food or preservation.

How to determine the optimal time for harvesting garlic?

Let's start with winter bolting varieties. At the beginning of summer, this type of crop throws out an arrow - a peduncle twisted into a spiral, at the end of which, by the end of the growing season, aerial bulbs or bulbs ripen.

Ripe aerated garlic bulbs or bulbs

It is by the appearance of the spherical inflorescence with bulbs that you can determine the readiness of the plants for harvesting. They start digging up the heads when the thin film covering the spherical inflorescence begins to crack, and the bulbs fall out or fly in different directions with gusts of wind (zealous owners specially tie the “balls” with gauze in advance to keep the seed material intact).

Many summer residents break out arrows that have grown more than ten centimeters in height. This procedure is done in order to prevent unnecessary expenditure of energy by the plant on the formation of peduncles and to interrupt the outflow of nutrients from the bulbs to the inflorescences.

As experience shows, it is still worth leaving 2-3 of the most powerful plants with arrows in each bed. Such seedlings are also popularly called “signal” seedlings, that is, giving a signal about the time of harvest. In addition, aerial bulbs collected from such seedlings can be used to update the garlic variety by planting them according to the usual method before winter and obtaining strong and healthy one-toothed bulbs the next year.

If it grows in your garden non-shooting winter or spring garlic(by the way, spring varieties of plants are not bolting), then you can determine the readiness of the bulbs for harvesting by the appearance of the tops, which clearly signals the end of the season in the garden, and the bulbs themselves.

Harvesting spring garlic

When the lower leaves turn yellow and dry out, and the tops (stem and leaf blades) begin to die en masse, then you should start digging up the garlic. Do not forget to first remove 1-2 bushes from the ground in order to visually inspect the bulbs for ripening. They should have clearly formed and clearly visible teeth, tightly adjacent to each other and covered with dense integumentary scales, already slightly thinned, unlike unripe garlic.

Drying garlic is the key to good shelf life

It is recommended to dig up garlic seedlings with a shovel, rather than pull them out, leaving torn roots in the ground, or pull them by the central stem. Excessive mechanical damage to the root system that has not yet dried out can provoke the development of worms, the pathogens of which penetrate into the heads through open wounds.

The dug up garlic bushes along with the stem are left directly on the garden bed for several days to dry in the open sun, of course, if no rainfall is expected in the near future.

Next, the entire plants are transferred under a canopy, to a terrace, veranda, attic or any other place with good air circulation, laid out in one layer on paper or canvas and drying continues for 2-3 weeks.

And only after this the tops are trimmed. Then they continue to dry the already cut heads in a well-ventilated place, for example in an attic or outside under a canopy, for another 3-4 weeks, after which the largest specimens are selected as planting material. The roots of the remaining garlic are carefully trimmed or burned and the vegetable is stored for long-term storage in a warm (+18°C) or cold (0-+2°C) way in rooms where the humidity is in the range of 70-75%.

If you plan to store garlic in braids or bundles, then there is no need to cut the stems, since they will be woven into the wreath with a base of strong twine; it is enough to shorten them slightly to the desired length.

To store garlic in bunches suspended from the ceiling or on the walls in a barn, basement, entryway or cellar, leave stumps about 20 cm long. For bulbs that will be stored in boxes, it is advisable to keep the height of the stumps about 5 cm, but not less than 2 cm .

Planting material, which uses selected healthy heads, as well as aerial bulbs, is stored in the same conditions as the entire harvest, only separately. Before planting, the bulbs are carefully inspected, discarding shrunken, rotten, spots and dents. Winter varieties are planted before winter until early November, and spring varieties - in March-April of the next season.

How do you harvest garlic? Share your practical recommendations in the comments below so that every reader can put your useful and invaluable experience into practice. May you be blessed with strong, healthy garlic bulbs at the end of the season every year!