How to Grow Garlic Sprouts at Home Successfully? Master These Key Points
Garlic sprouts are a vegetable that people love to eat, valued for their tender, bright green leaves and white, slightly reddish false stems. So if you want to grow garlic sprouts at home, how should you do it?
1. Choosing soil and planting containers
Choose deep, fertile, loose, well-draining sandy loam or loam soil, with a previous crop of grain crops or non-allium vegetables, and deep-plow to loosen the soil before sowing.
Because space at home is limited, you can choose suitable containers to fill with soil for planting, such as a large foam box or a wide-mouthed flower pot.
2. Seed selection and sowing
1. Seed selection
Choose early-maturing, uniform and plump, disease-spot-free, rot-free, insect-free, mechanically undamaged white-skinned garlic cloves with uninjured terminal buds that are suitable for local cultivation, not prone to degeneration, with thick leaves, fresh leaf color, and thick, long false stems, such as Zhangye white-skinned garlic and Ledu white garlic.
2. Seed treatment
Disinfect before planting by evenly spraying the garlic seeds with the fungicide carbendazim or chlorothalonil, spread the garlic seeds on moist ground at a thickness of 7-10 cm, and turn them once every 3-5 days so the garlic seeds absorb moisture evenly and root uniformly. After 15-20 days, most garlic cloves will have sprouted white roots and can be sown.
3. Sowing
Generally, when the temperature is stable at 17-19°C, sow early garlic from late April to early May, and late garlic from late May to early June. When sowing, sort by grade and place the seeds in a fixed direction to make management easier. The garlic seeds should be placed upright, not uneven at the top and bottom, so that the soil cover is consistent and seedlings emerge uniformly. The planting depth is 4-5 cm, and the soil cover thickness should generally be enough to bury the tips of the garlic cloves.
3. Daily management
1. Watering
After sowing, water thoroughly once to promote garlic clove sprouting. After seedlings emerge, water once again to lift the seedlings. After the surface dries, to prevent soil compaction, shallow-cultivate and mound soil to preserve moisture. Afterward, water in good time according to the weather and soil moisture. When watering, avoid flood irrigation, which can cause soil compaction, to avoid seed rot and yellowing of garlic sprouts.
2. Fertilizing
On the basis of applying sufficient base fertilizer, apply small amounts multiple times according to seedling growth. In the early stage, mainly apply nitrogen fertilizer to promote seedling growth. Topdress once every 15 days, for a total of three times. Spray 0.3% monopotassium phosphate on the leaves once every 7 days, for a total of three times, to prevent premature aging of the plants.
3. Pest and disease control
(1) Root maggot control
When fertilizing, fully compost organic fertilizer and apply it deeply with soil cover, or apply more plant ash fertilizer (best applied around the plant roots) to reduce opportunities for egg laying. If necessary, use flood irrigation once to reduce the occurrence of garlic maggots.
During the adult root maggot occurrence period, mix brown sugar water, vinegar, and water in a ratio of 1:1:2.5 to make a trapping liquid, add sawdust and trichlorfon and mix well, put it into trapping basins, and trap and kill adults in contiguous garlic fields.
(2) Purple blotch control
The optimum temperature for purple blotch onset is 25-27°C, and it does not occur below 12°C. Generally, it is more severe in warm, rainy, or humid summers.
In the early stage of the disease, spray 70% mancozeb wettable powder at 500 times dilution, or 30% copper oxychloride suspension at 600-800 times dilution, once every 7-10 d, for 2-3 consecutive sprays.