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Planting winter onions and garlic: useful tips from a knowledgeable gardener
29.09.2024 06:20
Dry springs and hot summer months make gardeners think about how to get good harvests of aromatic and healthy vegetables.
Many people have chosen to plant onion sets and garlic cloves in late autumn. This way, the plantings will receive all the spring moisture, which will give a start to the growth of the heads.
Anastasia Kovrizhnykh, an expert of the online publication "BelNovosti", a scientist, agronomist and landscape designer, told us how to act.
How to prepare beds
Preliminary sowing of green manure on the plot provides all the necessary nutrients for healthy and maximally developed bulbs.
This could be mustard, vetch, or lupine. Even small sprouts of plants will loosen the soil and produce green mass. But they do not need to be plowed, as many are accustomed to.
It will be enough to weed the seedlings with a hoe, and make holes in the soil with it or a special tool (harrow, Fokin flat cutter, etc.).
It is better to make the distances between the rows of plantings wide, up to 40 cm. Since bulbous plants like slightly alkaline soil, you can simply scatter wood ash along the bottom of the furrows.
This is important! Onion and garlic plantings need light. In shaded areas, beds under trees, the harvest will be lower than the planting material declared by sellers.
When to sow
It used to be believed that garlic (spring onions were not planted) should be planted before the Feast of the Protection of the Holy Mother of God, celebrated on October 14. According to popular belief, snow could fall at any moment after this day. Now these dates have shifted. The end of October, beginning of November is the ideal period.
Night frosts have not yet become the norm, there is enough moisture for rooting of cloves and bulbs. Covering the beds with fallen leaves from the garden will both prevent freezing and prevent the soil from overheating under the autumn sun. In the spring, this blanket will retain moisture. There is no need to remove the cover in the spring. The leaves will make weeding difficult, but they will also prevent weeds from filling the spaces between the rows.
What else can be sown before winter?
The ideal neighbor for onions is carrots. As is known, their tops repel onion pests, and vice versa. They are also sown in the fall.
The germination of root crop seeds that have overwintered in the soil decreases, so the planting density should be increased. It is better to thin out in the spring than to get empty areas. As practice shows, transplanted carrots do not take root well.
Note! Some gardeners advise raising vegetable beds, which is effective in northern regions. There is excess moisture there and the soil takes a long time to warm up. The southern and central regions do not need to do this.
A little about onions
With sufficient moisture and nutrients in the soil, spring (winter) onions grow large, as close as possible to the varietal norm.
It has virtually no small heads and is stored well. But it needs to be harvested early, as it ripens by early July. A dry summer can extend the time the crop remains in the ground, and a rainy one can speed up digging.
Before purchasing seed material, you should think about what kind of onion to grow and for what purpose. Late varieties are suitable for winter storage and sale in the fall.
Early, mid-season and salad varieties will produce excellent green mass, and marketable heads will appear by the end of May. An ordinary gardener, not a trader, can adjust the purchase of seeds depending on the needs of the family.
