How and where to store garlic correctly for the winter in an apartment at home

Since ancient times, garlic has been used as a medicine for many well-known diseases. For example, in ancient Egypt, slaves were fed with garlic so that they were less likely to get sick and work harder. This is evidenced by the frescoes on the walls of ancient structures discovered during excavations. But even today, garlic is an excellent prophylactic agent against any kind of infection. In addition, this vegetable is easy to grow, which is why it is cultivated in almost all countries. Garlic should be in every home, and the task of every housewife by any means is to preserve garlic until fresh harvest.

How to store garlic properly

For proper storage of garlic, a certain temperature and humidity level should be strictly observed. In this regard, there are 2 main ways of storing garlic:

Cold way

  • In this case, the garlic must be stored in conditions of high humidity (70-80%) and low temperatures (2-4 degrees). However, this method is used exclusively for storing winter garlic;

Warm way

  • In this case, it is necessary to store the heads of garlic in a room with an air temperature of 16-20 degrees and a humidity of 60-70%. This method is great for storing spring garlic;

Winter garlic should be stored at high humidity and low temperatures (2-4 degrees), and spring garlic, on the contrary, at low humidity and high temperatures (16-20 degrees)

It is important for every housewife to know that winter garlic is very capricious: it quickly rots or dries out as a result of moisture loss, and is often affected by diseases. This is due to the fact that the heads of winter garlic do not have a large amount of covering scales. Therefore, winter garlic is not suitable for long-term storage. That is why the planting of such garlic begins in the fall. Spring garlic, on the contrary, is harvested in late summer or autumn, dried and sent for storage. Under certain conditions, spring garlic can last until spring. However, even during the storage of spring garlic, problems can arise.

Quite often, garlic begins to dry out during storage. This indicates that there is insufficient humidity in the room where the garlic is stored. So the loss of moisture can be prevented by waxing. To do this, melt a candle and dip the heads of garlic into liquid paraffin. When the paraffin has hardened, the bulbs will be trapped in cocoons. The paraffin shell prevents moisture evaporation, which means that the garlic will stay fresh and juicy for a long time.

Mold or rot on the bulbs can be another problem when storing garlic. These diseases most often affect frozen garlic or bulbs with mechanical damage. Also, the development of the disease is facilitated by the warm climate in the room where the garlic is stored. Therefore, to prevent the garlic from rotting, dry it thoroughly in the sun after harvesting, since ultraviolet rays kill bacteria and fungi that contribute to garlic decay.

How to store garlic in an apartment at home

It is best to store garlic in braids or wreaths. Leave a false stem on the dried garlic after harvest. The leaves should be removed. Braid the braid from the bottom, sequentially weaving more and more new bulbs. Each braid can contain up to 15 heads of garlic. To make the braid strong, twine is inserted into it, and a loop is made at the end. With the help of it, the pigtail can be hung on the wall. When stored properly, pigtailed garlic survives until the next harvest.

You can store garlic at home in winter in a ventilated container. The bulbs are placed in boxes, cardboard boxes, baskets, linen bags, stuffed in nylon stockings, and then placed in a dry, cool place. In winter, the garlic must be sorted out. And you need to do this at least once a month.

Some people store garlic after pretreating it with an oily composition. To do this, dissolve 20 drops of iodine in 1 liter of vegetable oil. Then carefully treat the heads of garlic with a cotton swab soaked in a freshly prepared solution. Then dry the heads in the sun. After the vegetable oil is absorbed into the garlic, place the heads in plywood boxes and place the garlic in a cool, dark place.

However, you can store garlic in an apartment in jars. Arrange well-dried, unpeeled onions in glass jars that must be sterilized first. And then close them with nylon caps. For better storage, you can sprinkle the garlic with wheat flour.

Some housewives manage to store garlic in table salt in winter. Prepare small boxes. Arrange the garlic in one layer. And then sprinkle it generously with coarse table salt so that the heads do not touch each other. When the salt has completely covered the garlic, add the next layer, etc. The box must be filled to the very top. Sometimes dry sawdust is used instead of salt.

Garlic is perfectly stored in an apartment if it is packed in linen bags. At low humidity, garlic is additionally sprinkled with onion peels. With high humidity, and this happens extremely rarely, bags of garlic should be pre-treated with a concentrated salt solution. After all, salt not only absorbs excess moisture, but also protects against bacteria and pests.

To store garlic in the refrigerator, you should disassemble the heads into cloves and peel them. Divide the garlic cloves into clean, steamed jars, then top with vegetable oil. In this form, garlic can be stored for up to three months.

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