How to Grow Garlic? | Plant, Harvest, and Store Garlic

Garlic vegetable is famous because of its medicinal properties and is widely grown all over the world. Similarly, it’s quite sensitive to grow or how harvest garlic at home. But in this article, we are going to share some simple steps on how to grow, plant, and harvest garlic, it can be helpful.

It has been used for a longer time in food like making mayonnaise, salad dressings, pickles, garlic bread, dehydrated, and in our daily food (curry making).

Additionally, it is used in all kinds of meat and vegetable preparation, and gives aroma and taste to food. Garlic demand has been increasing day by day in Asian as well as in European countries.

How to Grow Garlic?

They are perennial hardy, companion plants are always propagated through vegetative methods by bulbs.

Overview of the Garlic Plant

Nutrients in Garlic

Garlic is rich in proteins, phosphorous, potassium, calcium, magnesium, carbohydrates and ascorbic acid are high in green garlic. Further, it reduces the cholesterol level in the blood and cures some stomach diseases, sore eyes, and earaches. Heart patients use Garlic also helps to cure diabetes. Additionally, black Garlic has some compounds that help to protect brain health and cure cancer. Whereas, eating raw garlic cloves helps to make the bones strong and muscles. It can improve skin and make your memory strong and also cure a cold and flu. It also proved a powerful antibiotic and was used to cure hip osteoarthritis. Hence, It helps to lose weight without any exercise.

Some wit wisdom things related to Garlic at if you get sting or itch from any kind of insect just rub the raw Garlic on it for healing.

Naturally, Garlic contains Allicin oil, colorless, odorless, and water-soluble amino acids. Comparatively, they differ in maturity, clove size, number, scale, color, bolting, bulb size, and flowering habits. Typical soil needs farmyard manure NPK to increase yield potential.

Soil Preparation To Grow Garlic

Garlic needs fertile, alkaline, saline, well-drained, friable, sandy loam pH level between 6 to 7, and heavy clay. Furthermore, for growing Garlic in the pot, you need a mixture containing peat, perlite or vermiculite, compost, or potting mix.

Climate Requirement

Generally, Garlic grows better in moderate summer and winter temperatures. It is planted from autumn to winter and harvested in summer. Garlic grows into seed trays in cold regions until young plants and then transplants into bed outside.

Companion or Cover Crops with Garlic

Plant garlic cloves with the companion or cover the crop in beds that will avoid pests and disease attacks like ants, beetles, spider mites, snails, and aphids. Similarly, you have to plant garlic with tomato, beans, lettuce, cabbage, and broccoli.

Fertilizer To Grow Garlic

Garlic cloves need fertilizer, organic in nature like meat or fish meal. Additionally, the nitrogen requirement for better growth of cloves is about 125-150kg/ha.

Watering

For good growth and development, frequent irrigation is needed that should be stopped when leaves start withering.

How to Harvest Garlic Clove?

Garlic cloves should be harvested when the tops turn brownish or yellowish and dry. Similarly, there is no proper method to harvest the garlic clove pull them from the top with your hands. Firstly, you have to pull them lightly from the soil, like uprooting them for drying. Then after one week when dried, uproot them properly and trimmed with sickles.

Post Harvesting

To avoid bruises harvest the Garlic carefully remove all the green leaves and save them in a dry environment at 15-32 ℃ temperature. Cut the leaves and roots when adequately dried and then put them to store. Similarly, you have to save it and store it for a more extended period, about 7-8 months, at a temperature of about 1.7-4.4 ℃.Very low relative humidity to avoid moisture interaction and disease attack. You can also save the peeled cloves of Garlic in an air-tight jar for cooking and kitchen. Therefore, use the small-sized cloves for cooking and save the large-sized for sowing purposes for next year.

Varieties of Garlic Plants To Grow

• Two main varieties of Garlic are given below
• Hardneck recommended for colder regions and in the winter season
• Softneck suggested in warmer regions
• Elephantic Garlic isn’t a true garlic variety

Great headed another variety that is not suggested to grow or use as it tastes like onion

Diseases and Pest

• White rot
• Purple blotch
• Stemphylium blight
• Powdery mildew
• Mosaic disease
• Thrips
• Stem and bulb nematode
• Mites

How to Grow Garlic Plant?

• Choose site areas that receive sunlight for about 6 to 8 hours per day.
• Prepare the soil mixture to contain compost organic matter well-drained soil check it to remove all the weeds, and then crop rotation with green manure cover crops.
• Select the required variety of Garlic according to the environment where your garlic plant can grow properly.
• After that, get the cloves of good quality, and diseased-free larger cloves produce healthy new garlic plant.

Just remember that don’t use the clove from the grocery store and take it from any nursery market.

• Remove cloves from the bulb a time before planting keep that in a paper case.
• Then place the number of cloves 2 to 4 inches apart and 2 inches deep straight, just put the broad side downwards into the soil and pointed side upwards.
• Also, remember that you need to mulch or cover the clover with cloches if you are in colder areas.
• There is another way to grow your garlic plant in a pot or in seed trays and put them inside and outside to take sunlight of about more than 6 to 8 hours for colder areas.
• Put the proper water in dry weather but don’t overwater.
• Don’t let the plant dry so that cloves will start swelling and as a result crop life will stop.
• Fertilizer is also needed for the plant, it needs proper nitrogen phosphorous and potassium must be present in the soil.
• You can also add fertilizer after two to three weeks just after little emerges comes out.
• Harvesting of garlic is the most crucial part of it, and after that, postharvest is more than harvesting.
• The harvesting time of the Garlic plant is just when the lower two or three leaves turn yellow or brown in color just a confirmation that it’s ready to harvest.
• The harvesting time is just in late summer and spring from seven to eight months of planting.
• Don’t harvest too soon or too late look at the plant size, color, and proper development.
• Dig out the plant for some time and let it dry, and then cut the heads and let them dry more.
• Take the sharp sickle to uproot the plant lightly and then wait until it gets dry.
• Putting the clove out after proper drying and curling off leaves is also necessary.
• After proper drying, you can store them for a longer time.

Be careful not to harvest before drying because of some disease due to moisture in it.

Furthermore, you may store the Garlic after proper drying out for about 7-8 months and save the large ones for next year’s crop.

Store them in a temperature range between 30-32℉ with very low RH to avoid moisture and prevents disease or pest, insect attacks.

Conclusion

In the end, while selecting the bulbs for garlic propagation make sure about the fresh and disease-free cloves of garlic. After you grow the garlic plant, you need to take good care of the garlic plant from sowing till harvesting, and if you need your garlic to live longer dehydration in sunlight post-harvesting. During harvesting do it when leaves of Garlic plants turn brownish or yellowish with hands and cut them when properly dried and store them for a long time. But in a situation, if you want fresh garlic cut them with a sharp sickle or knife and enjoy your own organic garden garlic in cooking foods.

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