When to harvest winter garlic in Siberia: digging dates

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 have made it an important crop in the Siberian climate.

Conditions in this region affect agrotechnical activities 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 save it.

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

Choosing the optimal harvesting time for grown plants allows you to increase yields. Both delays in harvesting and premature harvesting reduce yields and reduce quality.

Unripe garlic is unsuitable for storage - teeth that are too soft will lose moisture and dry out. Overripe heads deteriorate, disintegrate, the scales exfoliate, exposing the core of the teeth. Fruits lose commercial and consumer qualities. Over-ripe bulbs can give repeated shoots, which will negatively affect the keeping quality. Teeth that have been peeled off will shrink during storage.

Harvesting products at the time of technological maturity of grown plants allows you to increase productivity. The harvested vegetable will have a marketable appearance, be distinguished by its suitability for sale, consumption, storage and sowing.

If garlic is planted in Siberia in autumn, the optimal time for its harvesting falls in the second half of July.

Features of winter garlic

Garlic is an annual bulbous plant that propagates vegetatively - by cloves or air bulbs-seeds (bulbs). It withstands frosts down to -4 ° C and below. The best varieties of winter garlic for Siberia are perfectly preserved under snow, but freeze in cold, snowless winters.

Vegetation begins in April at a temperature of +5… +10 °С. During the formation of heads, the plant needs warmth and sun. The temperature during this period should be at least +15 … +20 °С, and at the time of ripening - not lower than +20 … +25 °С.

The plant is sensitive to changes in growing conditions, so it is best to use released varieties. The best winter varieties for Siberia are the non-shooting Novosibirsk 1 and the shooting Siberian. In addition, the following arrow-yielding varieties are grown for winter plantings: Alkor, SIR-10, Skif, Autumn, Gradekovsky, Bashkirsky. Most of them are early maturing varieties.They are low-lying, but fruitful.

There are some features of the winter planting of garlic. It is planted after cucumbers, radishes and other early vegetables, legumes, on flat, wind-protected areas. During the period of germination of teeth, the plant is sensitive to moisture. With insufficient moisture, the heads will be small, and the harvest will be small. At the same time, the plant rots in the lowlands. It does not tolerate shading, so it is planted in open and well-lit areas.

In Siberia, productive varieties for winter plantings are planted from September 15 to October 5, so that the teeth take root before the cold snap, but do not have time to form leaves.

Arrow varieties at the end of June throw arrows, which are removed as they appear, if 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 precocity of the selected varieties. Shooting varieties are dug up after the lower leaves turn yellow by 75%, and the film of the inflorescence boxes begins to crack. In such varieties, mature bulbs have a weight of up to 60 g. Non-shooting varieties are harvested after 2/3 of the leaves of the plant lie on the ground. The non-shooting Novosibirsk variety has mature bulbs weighing up to 35 g.

Winter garlic harvesting

Determine when to dig up garlic, you can also empirically, freeing several heads from the soil. The cloves in mature bulbs are well separated from each other, and the husk is easily removed. In arrow varieties, there are from 4 to 10 cloves in a mature head. They are arranged 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, seed boxes begin to crack. Dry and hot weather accelerates 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 duration of the growing season of summer varieties ranges from 100 to 125 days. Harvest time is influenced by weather conditions and care during the growth process. In dry and hot summers, harvesting time shifts to early August.

It is possible to correctly determine when to harvest spring garlic, just as it is done with winter varieties.Most summer varieties are non-shooters, so the foliage is used as a guideline for determining harvest time. You should not wait for full ripening, as rainy weather often falls during the harvest period. To speed up the ripening, the bulbs are slightly freed from the soil.

How to harvest and store garlic?

If you plan to propagate the plant with cloves, it is harvested at the usual time. If air bulbs are needed for planting next year, several plants with a large arrow and the strongest and he althiest foliage are left in the garden until September. When the head of the arrow is fully opened, the garlic is dug up. The next year, large round bulbs will grow from the bulbs. In Altai, dug out bulbs are sorted and the cloves are used as seed. This is how the winter varieties used are rehabilitated.

To improve the he alth of spring varieties, dug bulbs in Altai are sorted, the largest teeth are selected and planted in early June next year or left for the winter.

Cleaning dates

The timing of garlic harvesting depends on the date of planting, quality of care, climatic conditions and the growing season of the planted plant variety.

To control the ripening of arrow varieties, arrows are left on several plants. When they straighten up, the garlic can be dug up. For non-shooting varieties of winter and summer garlic, an indicator of readiness is yellowed foliage and a soft neck of a 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. Plants stop watering 2-3 weeks before harvest. Holding them by the tops, they dig them in with a pitchfork, and then gently pull them out. For long-term storage, it is important not to damage the integrity of the heads and not damage the shell when digging out.Therefore, the earth is carefully removed by hand, without damaging the roots and husks.

This is a crop that does not need to ripen in the sun. Harvest should be immediately removed under a canopy along with foliage and roots. Here it is kept for 2-3 weeks. Only then cut off at a distance of 2-3 cm from the head or 7-8 if knitting is planned. The roots are cut, leaving no more than 2 cm.

The fruits can be washed, but the heads should not touch each other when drying.

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 in the place of storage should not exceed +5 °C. For the warm method, the bulbs are placed in cloth bags or cardboard boxes. Then they are placed in a dark, cool place: in the pantry, in the attic. The main conditions - the temperature is not higher than +15 ° C and good air exchange.

For planting material, a combination of two methods of storing warm and cold is acceptable. 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 2022-2023 is approaching, and the winter vegetable is already in the ground, and the correct choice of the date of collection will affect its safety. The warm and cold seasons of 2022-2023, although they promise to be warmer than last year, nevertheless will not be hot enough for a good harvest. At the same time, both warm and cold seasons promise to be wet, with sufficient rainfall.

Lunar 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 for full ripening, winter garlic must remain in the garden until mid-July, and spring garlic until mid-August, according to the lunar calendar in 2022-2023, garlic can be harvested:

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

Country hack

The Siberian region is vast, the climatic and agronomic conditions in Eastern and Western Siberia are somewhat different.

In the conditions of Western Siberia, for example, in Novosibirsk, a winter vegetable gives a good harvest. The critical periods are cool May and June. No snow frosts occur in November, so planting must be completed before October 5th. At the same time, there are no snowy winters here.

Apply the following landing pattern. 3 days before planting, water the soil abundantly.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. Cloves are planted in it. To protect them from frost, bulbils 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 - planting garlic in 2 tiers at a depth of 20 and 12 cm, which allows you to get a double crop. Bulbs are dug up with pitchforks or flat teeth and left in the air for only 10 days, and then they are taken indoors.

In Irkutsk and other regions of Eastern Siberia, garlic is planted in mid-September - 40 days before the onset of persistent cold weather. Winter oats are often sown on top. Due to the late spring, harvesting dates are shifted to mid-August. In order to delay ripening by 2-3 weeks and allow the bulb of winter garlic to grow a little more, the leaves are tied in a knot in early July.