The garlic or young garlic, which is nothing other than the garlic plant in a younger state, are very popular for their nutritional consumption, and it is that they have a large number of beneficial properties for health, in addition to their great taste, such as the garlic but softer.
If you want to learn how to grow your own garlic at home to have organic ingredients and the best quality, join us in this Green Ecologist article about how to plant garlic step by step.
When to plant garlic sprouts
The best thing about young garlic or garlic is that, since what we are going to harvest are actually young shoots, it takes much less time to have the crop ready to be harvested. For this reason, while the traditional harvest of garlic takes more than 6 months, that of young garlic will be less than two months, around 45 days.
Thanks to this, the planting margin is also much higher. As what we must avoid in the cultivation of garlic are the warmer months, the harvest of young garlic can be done from the end of summer to practically the end of winter. In fact, given its rapid cultivation and harvesting process, the ideal is plant the garlic in a staggered manner from the beginning of autumn, so that we can enjoy our harvest of fresh garlic until spring.
How to plant garlic step by step
Planting garlic to harvest garlic It is a very similar process to growing regular garlic, although there are a few differences.
- The first thing will be prepare the soil. Young garlic grows by basically feeding on the nutrients contained in the garlic bulb's own cloves, so it will not be necessary to fertilize the soil much. In fact, preparing a small layer of compost or worm castings at the base where we are going to bury them will be enough. We recommend this other article on How to make worm humus so that you can learn how to prepare your own organic compost of this type.
- Once you have the ground ready, bury the garlic or bulbs of this plant about 5 or 6 centimeters deep, more than that required by the common cultivation of garlic, since here we are interested in having a longer stem, since it is what we will later consume. Keep in mind that, although it is possible to plant garlic with its teeth separately, most experts recommend sow whole garlic heads, without more preparation than to lightly peel the outer layers to facilitate the germination of the garlic cloves, which is not necessary either. Just be sure to plant the garlic heads with their small roots down and the sharp parts up, or they will have a lot of trouble germinating.
- After burying them, cover the area again with dirt and water a little to moisten, without flooding.
- When finished, if you have fireplace ashes, you can add a thin layer to the soil to add some potassium to the soil, or some banana tea instead, since garlic is very grateful for this nutrient.
Young garlic in a pot: how to plant them
For plant the garlic in a pot, it will be enough to follow these indications:
- Get yourself a container or pot that has approximately a few 10 cm deep. Otherwise, the process is quite similar to that of garden cultivation.
- When preparing the substrate, keep in mind that garlic does not require a large amount of nitrogen, so it will not be necessary to add fertilizer to the usual mixture. Instead, the wood ash or banana tea options will give better results, as discussed earlier, for potassium that contain.
- Bury the whole garlic heads if the pot has enough space or, if it is narrow or very long, plant them by cloves, a few centimeters apart.
- Water after sowing, and in about 45 days your garlic will be ready to be harvested. Remember that when the tips of the shoots turn yellow, it will be time to harvest.
Apart from these steps and tips, we advise you to know the information that we bring you in this other post about Planting garlic: how and when to do it.
Young garlic: basic care
The garlic requires very little care. Here we leave you a practical guide with the basic care of garlic sprouts:
- It is a crop that needs little water and few nutrients, in addition to being very fleeting.
- Use soils without excess nitrogen fertilizer.
- Water your young garlic only when the soil is dry, since they do not require constant humidity. Of course, about 20 days before harvest, it is important to stop watering them.
- It is also advisable to keep the garlic area clean of any weeds, as it could deprive these plants of the water and nutrients they need.
If you want to read more articles similar to How to plant young garlic, we recommend that you enter our category of Cultivation and care of plants.
