How To Store Garlic At Home?

2024 Author: Josephine Shorter | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-01-07 17:49

How to store garlic at home?

Despite the abundance of garlic in the store at any time of the year, it is always a good idea to have a small supply of it at home. Garden owners are also interested in keeping their garlic harvest as long as possible. Living in your own house, you can use the utility rooms - basement and cellar. It is more difficult to store garlic in an apartment, but even for such a situation, you can find many ways to store garlic.

Content:

• Terms of harvesting garlic
• What garlic should be stored
• How to store garlic

Terms of harvesting garlic

Before determining the harvest time for this vegetable, you need to determine the type of garlic.

There are the following types:

• Winter shooting, non-shooting;
• Spring, or summer, ("spring").

Differences in appearance - spring garlic has small heads of bright white color with silky scales. Winter garlic is larger, its varieties can have a color range from white to dark purple. Spring garlic tolerates winter storage much better than winter garlic; it can remain unchanged until June.

The time of harvesting or planting, keeping quality of garlic depends on what species it belongs to. The signal for harvesting spring garlic is yellowing and the beginning of lodging of leaves. For the middle lane, the harvesting period for summer garlic is the second, third decades of August. Winter garlic begins to be harvested when the lower leaves turn yellow, and the scales covering the head of the garlic become dry. The time of harvesting winter garlic is the third decade of July, the first decade of August.

For cleaning, choose sunny dry weather.

If you skip the optimal harvest time, the quality of the product deteriorates markedly:

• The heads of garlic break down into separate cloves;
• Cracking of the covering scales occurs;
• A new cycle of garlic development begins - new roots appear at the bottom, young leaves hatch from the teeth.

Garlic with signs of overgrowth is not suitable for storage. It is advisable to dry it for several days outdoors, or in the shade under a canopy

What garlic should be stored

Owners of their own garlic garden know that before you start laying garlic for storage, you need to sort it out. Teeth from large heads that do not show signs of disease are left for planting. Seed material is taken from the outer row of cloves; the core of the head is usually not used for reproduction.

Not used for long-term storage:

• Garlic heads with mechanical damage;
• Overripe crumbling specimens;
• Diseased garlic, affected by mold and rot.

Small, non-standard, crumbling heads of garlic are used in the very near future for preparations for the winter and for cooking. Healthy selected specimens are prepared for bookmarking for long-term storage.

All garlic, both seed and selected for future use, must be dried, removed from the upper covering scales, and the roots must be cut off. The dry arrow in the center of the head is cut off 2-4 cm from the shoulders. If you plan to store the garlic tied in a "braid", the arrow is left longer - at least 30 cm. Garlic purchased in markets and in the supermarket is most likely already dried and trimmed. It is important to choose healthy specimens for long-term storage, free from rot and disease.

How to store garlic

There are two main ways to store garlic and its varieties:

• Cold method at a temperature of + 1 + 3 ° C, humidity 50-70% (suitable for storing spring garlic);
• Warm method at a temperature of + 18 + 20 ° C, humidity 70-80% (ideal for storing winter varieties).

In an apartment, you can place garlic on a loggia or balcony part of the time before the onset of stable negative temperatures. In winter, techniques are used to store this vegetable at room temperature.

How to store garlic at home:

• In a braided braid. You can weave a garlic braid by analogy with an onion bundle. To do this, when drying, leave the ends of the stems up to 30 cm long, weave a braid from them, weaving twine or rope into it for strength. Leaving such weaving for a long time is not recommended, as the stems dry out and lose their plasticity. This technique is suitable for spring varieties.

• Paraffin coated. To prevent the garlic from drying out, you can dip it in melted paraffin or wax before storing. You will need 150-200 g of paraffin for 50 heads. It is melted in a water bath and dipped in a warm solution of the head. It is impossible to boil the solution, the main thing is to bring the consistency to a liquid state. You can apply wax, paraffin with a brush. After the coating has hardened, the garlic is placed in cardboard boxes.
• After treatment with oil and iodine. Boil the vegetable oil, add iodine to it (10 drops per 0.5 l), rub the garlic generously with this mixture. The processed heads are dried in the sun, put in a box, box.
• In the refrigerator. The method is suitable for storing a small amount of garlic. It is stored by wrapping each head in plastic wrap to prevent odor.
• Oil-filled. The cloves are cleaned of the coating, placed in a glass container and poured with boiled and cooled refined sunflower oil. The method is good in that the oil infused with garlic acquires a pleasant aroma and can be used for dressing salads. At room temperature, the oil can turn rancid, it is better to store the container in a cool place in the refrigerator.
• In flour. The dried heads of garlic are placed in dry glass jars, sprinkled with flour, the jars are sealed with ordinary lids, and stored at room temperature.
• In salt. The method is similar to the previous one, with the difference that salt or dry sawdust is used instead of flour.
• In linen bags soaked in brine. If the room is humid, salt will keep the garlic from rotting and mildew. At low air humidity, the cloth is not impregnated with saline, the heads of garlic are sprinkled with onion peels.

So that the garlic does not germinate, a simple technique is used - its bottom is lightly burned over the flame of a gas burner. Store jars, boxes or boxes with garlic prepared for long-term storage in a dry and cool place, without access to light. Compliance with all conditions will greatly increase the storage period of garlic.

The author of the article: Sokolova Nina Vladimirovna | Phytotherapist

Education: Diploma in "General Medicine" and "Therapy" received at the Pirogov University (2005 and 2006). Advanced training at the Department of Phytotherapy at the Peoples' Friendship University of Moscow (2008).