How to store garlic after digging at home?

Garlic's ease of cultivation usually results in bountiful harvests of this herbaceous perennial vegetable and the annual challenge of how to store garlic until the next harvest. There are many ways to store a culture, however, not all of them are able to provide good keeping quality of a spicy and fragrant vegetable. Is it possible to freeze garlic, and which variety of Alliaceae is best able to survive the winter?

Conditions for the correct collection of garlic

Storage, including long-term, up to a new harvest, is subject to any, timely removed from the garden and properly prepared garlic.It is believed that spring varieties of garlic, harvested in the last month of summer, are much more enduring than their winter counterpart, but a large number of reviews from experienced agronomists have made adjustments to this product storage information. It turns out that in most cases of growing winter crops, many gardeners for some reason omit the need for a number of actions to disinfect seed material, and when faced with vegetable diseases or the fact of head rotting in the ground, they do not always work to find out the cause and allow diseases to cover large areas of sowing.

A big role for proper storage is played by the correct determination of the timing of harvesting vegetables:

spring garlic, removed from the garden after August 20;
winter vegetable is kept in the garden until mid-July.

You can determine the readiness of the crop for digging, focusing on the condition of the green part of the plant stem creeps."It is impossible to keep the planting material in the soil, just as it is impossible to water the garlic in the last 10-12 days before harvesting the crop - all this contributes to the release of young shoots by the bulbs and the disintegration of the garlic head into individual cloves. In this state, dug up bulbs are useful only for storage in a processed form.

Immediately after the whole culture is dug up, it is sorted out, throwing aside all the bulbs that are spoiled or not tight enough to the touch. Immediately, in the garden, on wooden or metal shields, they carry out the first, after harvesting, drying of garlic. The vegetable dries in the shade, always along with the tops and the entire green part of the plant. At night, the onions are removed into the room, and put out again for the day - and so, for at least 4 days.

How should garlic be stored after digging up, so as not to worry about having a vegetable on the table until the next harvest?

Where to store garlic?

Storage of garlic in a cellar or pantry should be carried out subject to a temperature regime that does not allow the thermometer to deviate from the optimal +3 … +6 degrees. It is not recommended to use metal garage boxes or damp basements for storing this vegetable - the humidity level in them can reach 80-100%, and at such values, the garlic will either dry out or begin to soften and rot.

Best of all, hang the garlic from the ceiling after harvesting. There are many methods to do this well, from braiding dried garlic stalks into pigtails, with the formation of a kind of “vine”, to using small baskets or mesh “bags”, in which garlic will be well ventilated in winter. If it is not possible to provide the vegetable with “air space”, undamaged heads are laid out in one row in flat boxes with perforations in the side walls and placed on racks.

To prevent the stored vegetable from becoming damp, you can not place a bookmark with garlic near boxes with carrots, turnips, beets, radishes, cabbage. The only worthy neighbor of the culture during storage will be well-dried onions.

There is another option to extend the shelf life of raw vegetable heads - store in the refrigerator. Whole heads of vegetables are placed 3-5 pieces in small kraft paper bags and occupy a separate vegetable container in the lower section of the refrigerator. Garlic is stored in this form for a short time - up to three weeks, so most housewives choose a more troublesome, but reliable storage method - freezing the onions in the freezer. This storage method is also good because the so-called “illiquid” is also suitable for it - a spoiled vegetable, from which you need to cut off the damaged areas, and then chop the teeth with a knife or in a meat grinder.

The resulting slurry or, if desired, whole peeled teeth, tightly stacked in special tight bags for low temperatures and store these briquettes in the freezer for as long as needed.What is the best temperature to store garlic? Frozen vegetable briquettes should preferably be stored at -4 … -7 degrees and never thawed whole, if there is no need to use the entire mass.

How to store garlic at home?

Processed garlic, when stored, must have a protective or nutrient medium in which its beneficial qualities would not change, and the life of the vegetable was extended for a long period.

Storage in oil

This way of storing garlic is a favorite of those who prefer adding the fragrant vegetable to soups and salad dressings. In vegetable oil, garlic partially loses its sharpness, but instead, it becomes very fragrant, saturating even the filling liquid with a thick aroma. The scheme for cooking a vegetable in oil is simple:

garlic cloves are peeled and minced with a knife;
the spicy mass is transferred to a small jar, filling it 2/3;
in a thin stream and with constant stirring of the liquefied gruel, vegetable oil is poured into the jar, adding the container to the "hangers";
garlic in a jar is closed with a plastic lid and put in the refrigerator for storage.

On the sunflower oil left after using the vegetable, you can cook first courses and even use it for medicinal purposes. The shelf life of the workpiece is up to 3 months.

Alcohol tincture of garlic

Medicinal garlic tincture is often mentioned in medical reference books, so in a house where there are patients with cardiovascular pathologies, such winter harvesting will come in handy. To get an elixir from a vegetable, you need a minimum of actions and a little bit of waiting:

two cups minced in a meat grinder, peeled cloves of garlic, insist in a closed jar for about an hour and a half;
after insisting, remove the entire top layer of the mass with a spoon - about a third of the total amount, and transfer the remaining gruel into a sterilized 0.5-liter dark glass bottle and pour a glass of high-quality alcohol;
the closed bottle is put away for storage in a secluded place for a week and a half, after which the tincture can be consumed.

The "removed" garlic does not need to be thrown away - the best way to store it is in a jar of oil, according to the previous method, or, alternatively, in the freezer.

How to store unpeeled garlic?

Storage of garlic at home can be carried out without additional processing of the vegetable. Thus, you can store garlic in the apartment for up to six months, and it retains its original taste and aroma longer.

Use of bulk materials

Storage of garlic in flour, coarse s alt or wood ash is justified by the moisture-absorbing properties of these sorbents. The use of any of the substances allows you to store the harvested vegetable right in the kitchen, without allocating a separate room, such as a basement or pantry:

Flour. The bottom of a flat plastic container is covered with a layer of flour and garlic heads of the same size are evenly laid on it. Using a sieve, flour a dense row of onions abundantly with flour and tightly close the container for further storage.
S alt. As a container, they take small boxes with perforation or corrugated cardboard boxes with holes in the lid. It is allowed to put up to three layers of garlic heads in one container so as not to crush the bottom row with the weight of the onions and s alt. Using glass 1-2-liter jars instead of a box extends the shelf life of the vegetable for another month or two, the main thing is not to forget to generously sprinkle the topmost layer of the stacked heads with s alt.
Ash. The method of laying a vegetable exactly repeats the previous one. A box with ash content, it is better to store it near radiators.

If garlic is stored in a city apartment in a pantry or in the kitchen, it is necessary to ensure that there are no potato, cabbage, beetroot bookmarks next to the capricious vegetable, which spread dampness and can cause the culture to rot.

"Paraffin Shirt"

For waxing, choose heads of the same, medium size, with tightly fused teeth and with intact husks. The lower part of each head, from where the roots begin to grow, is cauterized. In a heat-resistant container, over low heat or in a water bath, melt broken wax candles or lumpy paraffin to a liquid state.

Each garlic head is taken separately by a dry stalk and immersed in liquid, holding the vegetable in paraffin for exactly 3 seconds. Then the vegetable heads are planted in one row in a flat box and stored in a cool place, away from sunlight. In paraffin coating, winter varieties of garlic are stored until January-February, spring varieties - until about June.

Whatever storage option for a hot spicy vegetable is chosen by the hostess (the exception is freezing), it should be remembered that there is no universal way to protect the vegetable from spoilage, which means that due to one damaged clove of garlic, there is a risk of rotting the entire styling.At least once a month and a half, you need to go through the stocks, probing the garlic heads and assessing the smell coming from the box (jar) with the vegetable.