Keep the harvested crop properly, so that it retains its useful properties for as long as possible. For example, to store garlic you need to know how to properly cut it for the winter after digging.
How correctly to cut garlic for storage?
Harvest should be either in July (winter) or in the second half of August (spring, planted in spring). Determine that garlic is ripe and ready for harvesting, you can by the condition of the leaves of the plant and the heads themselves - they should not crack.
Before cutting the garlic, it is necessary to properly dig it and dry it. For this, in a warm and necessarily dry weather, carefully punctuate the forks of the plant in the garden. After you extracted the garlic, you need to manually shake the ground off its roots and put it to dry it right on the bed. This will take 4-5 days. If the weather is damp, it is better to remove the crop to dry in a ventilated room. Keep in mind that you must dry the garlic together with the foliage.
When it's time to prune the garlic after harvesting, arm with sharp scissors and first cut the roots, leaving about 3 mm on each bulb. Then it is necessary to cut off the stems, while usually leaving 10 cm from the neck of garlic. Such a pruning scheme ensures the quality storage of your crop throughout the winter.
The answer to the question, whether it is necessary to cut garlic, is obvious. Of course, this is necessary! First, it is much more convenient to store it in the cut-off form. Secondly, if garlic is not trimmed, then in winter it can become soft and spoil. And thirdly, so the storage period is prolonged: cropped winter garlic retains its properties for 3-4 months after harvesting, and spring - until the new harvest.
Store garlic in the following ways:
- woven in pigtails, which are suspended in a dry cool room;
- in a wooden box, pouring layers of salt;
- in canvas bags with onion husks;
- in glass jars with dry flour;
- in a container of vegetable oil.