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Growing Garlic and Onions By Sara Peterson So you’ve started your garden, you’ve been working the soil, making compost, watering plants, and spending a lot of time on your knees, weeding. What else do you need to be ready for a potential virus attack? Grow some garlic.
GARLIC: The King of Herbs
Onion sets (versus seeds and transplants) are the easiest, no-fail way to grow onions. But if you want onions bigger than 2 inches, grow them from transplants or seeds. Direct-seeding is the cheapest way to grown onions. If you have sandy soil, make sure that you water often, the soil must be kept moist. Even in loamy soil, a good inch of water is needed each week. Use compost to increase the amount of water the soil can hold. Buy the right onion variety for your region and season. Plant them in the ground as soon as possible in the spring and keep them well fertilized. The earlier they are in, the better. Most onions can handle a light frost. In areas with mild winters, you can also plant in the late summer or fall. If you frequently have double bulb onions, then the onion has been stressed while growing (not enough water). Mulch your onions with straw, grass clippings or other organic matter to retain more moisture. Certain varieties are more prone to double bulbs than others.
Store the bulbs on cardboard or in a mesh bag in a dry location where the temperature is just above freezing. They will decay faster if kept on concrete and will sprout at 55-60 degrees F (worst range for storing onions). With proper storage most onions will keep 4-5 months. Source: Rodale Organic Gardening Solutions |
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If you want hotter garlic, deny the plant water, don’t mulch it, and plant it in soil that’s low in organic matter and nutrients (poor soil).
If your garlic is plagued by brown rot, this is probably due to a fungus that reduces the number of roots that come out of the bottom of the garlic bulb. You will end up with smaller bulbs as wells. To avoid this problem buy only noninfected cloves (cloves free of brown spots). Note: A single bulb can contain both infected and noninfected cloves, so check each bulb in a clove.
Always buy new planting stock from a reputable source. Plant the “clean” cloves carefully-without cutting or bruising them, in a sunny, well-drained spot. Some recommend planting garlic where garlic hasn’t grown for at least 7 years others state that rotating crops is sufficient.
ONIONS: The Queen of Herbs
Most of the neck rot in onion plants occurs during the drying period from fungi or bacteria. This is a result of excessive rain or watering during the two weeks prior to harvesting. Do not water onion plants 2 weeks before harvest. Gather onions when tops just start to fall over, before they’ve turned brown. If you live in the south where there are periods of heavy rain in the summer, you may wish to harvest early, when the tops are still erect. After harvesting, clip the tops 1 inch from the bulbs and spread one layer thick on cardboard (or wooden slats), or they can be hung in a mesh bag in a well-ventilated place like a garage. The bulbs must be dried quickly. They can even be dried in front of a fan for 4-5 days.