How to Grow Garlic in the North? A Detailed Guide to the Key Cultivation Techniques

Garlic is a seasoning we often use in everyday cooking, especially in the north, where garlic is used almost everywhere. There is a saying, “Eat noodles without garlic, and the flavor is halved”. Here we will talk about garlic cultivation techniques.

I. Garlic Cultivation Techniques

1. Land preparation. The plowing depth is generally about 20cm, and the soil should be finely tilled, leveled, and compacted.

2. Seed selection. Select seeds by hand, remove the basal plate and stem plate of the garlic, and grade them by large, medium, small, and garlic heart.

2. Planting. In the north, garlic is planted in autumn, generally from late September to early October, and the harvest season is between spring and summer of the following year.

3. Irrigation. Garlic has a relatively large water requirement, and generally needs watering 4 times throughout the growing period. These are the mulching water, the seedling-strengthening water, the bolting water, and the bulking water.

4. Mulching. After watering for mulching, when the ground has slightly settled, cover with film using a mulching machine or by hand.

5. Fertilization. The fertilization principle for green food garlic is to mainly use organic fertilizer, apply a small amount of chemical fertilizer according to a formula; mainly use base fertilizer, with topdressing as a supplement.

II. The Benefits of Garlic

Li Shizhen, a famous physician in our country, also summarized in the Compendium of Materia Medica that garlic has multiple benefits such as warming the spleen and strengthening the stomach, promoting appetite, aiding digestion, relieving cough and stopping bleeding, promoting the movement of qi and reducing stagnation, and detoxifying and killing insects. Modern scientific analysis shows that in addition to containing various nutrients such as protein, fat, vitamins, and minerals, garlic also contains a volatile oil with a special odor. This oil contains allicin as well as various allyl, propyl, and methyl sulfide compounds. The presence of these active ingredients gives garlic multiple medical and health benefits.

As the saying goes: big fish and big meat are too greasy, peel a clove of garlic to cut the greasiness; vegetarian food is too plain, mash two cloves of garlic to add flavor; if the food does not seem fresh, have a clove of garlic to “sterilize” it; if you find there are no scallions when stir-frying, cut two cloves of garlic to flavor the pan…… Do you friends like eating garlic? It is said that garlic consumption also differs between north and south. I wonder what everyone thinks?