10 Amazing Health Benefits Of Garlic

By Natural Blaze

Garlic is well known as a natural health remedy that has long been used to treat various ailments. It is extremely easy to source in most countries and can be consumed cooked or fresh. It is most easily included in your food or can be eaten on its own. You don’t need to limit yourself to fresh garlic either. Garlic powder or dried garlic flakes are just as effective and super easy to keep in the cupboard for everyday use.
It is recommended that adults consume no more than one clove two or three times a day and that children have one quarter to one half a clove, once or twice a day.
As you will see from the list below, as well as being a tasty addition to almost every cooked dish, garlic has some amazing abilities to help in our everyday lives. When used for medicinal purposes, garlic can help to treat a wide variety of ailments as well as making your dinner taste amazing.
If you’re keen to find out how garlic can be used to assist in your health, sit back and read our 10 amazing health benefits of garlic!

1. Garlic has been found to assist babies to gain weight while they are in the womb. Next time you have a baby prepare to have garlic breath. Except if you have a history of large babies in which case maybe you want to skip the extra doses?
2. Garlic strengthens the immune system as well as helps to fight chest infections, coughs and congestion. In the winter months garlic is a great food to boost your immune system and ward off colds and flu. An old folk remedy is to eat a clove of garlic that has been dipped in honey at the first sign of a cold. Why not try it and see if it works for you?
3. Garlic contains high levels of iodine which makes it a very effective treatment for hyperthyroid conditions. Treatment with garlic has been shown to greatly improve this condition.
4. Scurvy is treated by vitamin C and garlic contains good levels of vitamin C too.
5. Popular folklore says that garlic is good for more than scaring hungry vampires away! Impotency has long been thought to benefit from doses of garlic, and treatment continues in many communities to this day. Why not try treating yourself with garlic for several months before you head off to the doctor for that Viagra prescription?

6. Cardiovascular disease can be reduced by ingesting garlic. LDL cholesterol is no friend of garlic and the aortic plaque deposits that gather on the walls of your body’s veins can be reduced with the use of garlic too. Studies have shown the amazing benefits of taking garlic in relation to heart disease.
7. Fungal and bacterial vaginal infections are toast when treated with garlic! When crushed or bruised, garlic releases Allicin which is a sulphuric compound that is a natural antibiotic. WWI soldiers even apparently used crushed garlic on infected wounds suffered in battle. If you decide to take garlic in tablet form be sure to use powdered capsules. The processes used to create garlic tablets destroy the Allicin that is present.
8. Garlic is a great source of vitamin B6 which is needed for a healthy immune system and the efficient growth of new cells. Vitamin B6 can also assist with mood swings and improve your cheery disposition!
9. Garlic can aid in the prevention of multiple types of cancer. Bladder cancer, prostate cancer, breast cancer, colon cancer and stomach cancer have all been shown to have their tumors reduced when treated with garlic. Vitamin B6 is said to have cancer fighting abilities.
10. Garlic regulates blood sugar as it enhances the level of insulin in the blood. This may assist in the control of diabetes. Seek medical advice if you believe the use of garlic could help your condition.
A word of warning about consuming too much garlic; in large doses, garlic can be detrimental to your health and you should never take more than the recommended dosage. Also be aware that the properties of garlic actually get into your bloodstream which is why it is so effective in so many ways. What this does mean, however, is that when you sweat, garlic will leave your body through your pores. Many people who eat larger than normal amounts of garlic report increased body odor.
Also consider another area of your health when you choose to consume more garlic than your friends and family. If you are the only one taking increased doses of garlic, chewing a sprig or three of parsley after each garlic dose is recommended to combat the lovely aroma of garlic breath!
Those around you will thank you for it!

Source

Growing Your Own Garlic Is Easy!

As far as I'm concerned, garlic gets the blue ribbon for growing your own. It's absurdly easy to plant and care for; it tastes great; it looks beautiful and it takes up so little ground that even those with very small gardens can raise enough to be self-sufficient in garlic for a good part of the year.

All you have to do is choose the right varieties; plant at the right time, in the right soil; then harvest when just right and store correctly.

1. Choosing Types of Garlic

If you look in a specialist catalog like the one at Gourmet Garlic Gardens, you'll find dozens of varieties of garlic listed. The folks at Filaree Farm, who offer a hundred, divide them into seven groups: Rocambole, Purple Stripe, Porcelain, Artichoke, Silverskin, Asiatic Turban and Creole. Gourmet GG says it's 10 groups because they divide Asiatic from Turban and add Marbled Purple Stripe and Glazed Purple Stripe to the list.

You see where this is going – and you can see a lot more types of garlic on either of those websites, but for general purposes the most important difference is the one between softneck and hardneck.

Softnecks are so called because the whole green plant dies down to pliancy, leaving nothing but the bulb and flexible stems that are easy to braid.
Hardnecks have a stiff stem in the center that terminates in a beautiful flower – or cluster of little bulbs – then dries to a rigid stick that makes braiding impossible.

Softnecks, the standard garlics of commerce, are the easiest to grow in regions where the weather is mild. They keep longer than hardnecks, but they are less hardy and more prone to make small, very strong-flavored cloves. Hardnecks do best where there is a real winter and are more vulnerable to splitting – or simply refusing to produce – when grown in warm climates.

Gardeners in most of the U.S. can try some of both. Southerners should probably stick to softnecks and northerners to the hard ones, but microclimates matter. Specialty sellers will suggest best bets based on your climate and tastes, and of course it's wise to get some seed stock from your local farmers' market: whatever it is, it's growing where you are.

Photo: Homegrown garlic, fresh out of the ground. Click the image for recipes that use garlic.

2. Planting Garlic

Growing garlic starts with knowing when to plant it. But planting itself is incredibly easy:

In mid-fall (around October 10 here in the Hudson Valley), plant garlic bulbs in loose, very fertile soil that's as weed-free as possible. Insert cloves root side down about 8 inches apart in all directions (if space is limited, you can squeeze by with 6), burying the tips about two inches down. Green shoots will come up; mulch around them with straw. Hard freeze will come and kill the shoots. Draw the mulch over the whole bed.

In spring, pull the mulch back when the new shoots emerge. Give them a shot of mixed fish emulsion and liquid seaweed. Keep them weeded. Water only if the soil is dry two or more inches down, being sure to avoid pouring water into the crowns of the plants.

3. Cutting Garlic Scapes

Both of us spent most of our gardening lives knowing it was important to cut off the flowering scapes of hardneck garlic so they wouldn't draw energy that should be spent making bulbs. Then I read a story about some garlic growing guru on Long Island who said it didn't matter a whit and he never bothered.

Well, it isn't really much bother; tender young scapes are delicious and older ones that have made pretty curls look wonderful in the vase. But still...

So we set up an experiment, easy because we always plant a long narrow raised bed with two parallel rows. We allotted 30 spaces in each row and planted the same variety – our saved household special – in both of them.

When they were about half grown, no longer super tender but not yet curly and tough, we set about cutting garlic scapes, but only from one row of the plants. At harvest, after trimming,

The cut row yielded: 15 jumbo heads, 14 medium, 1 small, with 9 cracked and 1 half-rotted.

The uncut row yielded 12 jumbo, 16 medium and 2 small, with 3 that were cracked and 1 that was half-cracked.

So, very close to a tie except for one thing: we got 5 pounds out of the cut row, 6.5 pounds out of the one we left alone.

Photo at right: Garlic scapes at the edge of our Maine garden.

Tips for cutting garlic scapes:

1. No harm in taking a few to eat, but don't wait until they're large. Most of the scapes I see for sale are bigger than the four-to-six inches long they should be for best flavor and texture.

2. No harm in cutting some for the vase, either, but don't take them too soon. If you wait until the tops are well developed you'll get, depending on variety, either:

a head of tiny garlic grains that can be used whole and unpeeled in place of minced garlic (for a week or two, after which the skins toughen), or

a clump of small round bulbs, called topsets, that can be stored all winter long and then planted close together in early spring to produce the garlic equivalent of scallions.

Photo: Topsets from the '08 crop, photographed in May '09.

4. Harvesting Garlic

When to harvest garlic depends on the type. Garlic varieties are divided into early, midseason and late, but what that means depends not only on your climate zone but also on your climate in the growing year. Heat speeds 'em up, cold slows 'em down, and although the harvest window is wide if you plan to eat the garlic fresh, it's narrow if you want to ensure maximum storage life.

The bulbs are ready when most of the lower leaves have browned. The upper ones will still be green. If you've ever grown onions, it's easy to assume garlic is the same and you should wait until all the leaves have fallen over. Bad idea. By the time all the leaves are dead the bulbs will have split; they won't have the leaf sheathes they need to form wrappers and it's likely fungus disease will have found a way in.

"Lift the bulbs" is usually used to describe moving things like daffodils, but it's also a good way to think about harvesting garlic. Those heads are more delicate than they seem and any cut or bruise will shorten storage life.

Try to choose an overcast day when the soil is dry. Loosen the soil with a digging fork, inserting it well away from the heads, then lift them out of the row and place them in a flat carrier.

Photo: Garlic plants at optimum harvest stage

5. Curing Garlic

Let the whole plants dry in a single layer somewhere out of the sun where it's warm but not hot. When the outer skin is papery, brush off as much dirt as possible and clip the roots. Rush this a bit if you're braiding garlic stems; if you wait until they're completely dry they tend to crack and break.

The finished garlic will still be on the dirty side compared to anything commercial. We leave it that way until we want to use it because further cleanup can shorten storage life. If you can't bear the way it looks, try removing the outer layer of wrapper. You can wash the bulbs if you must and should be ok as long as they dry quickly and thoroughly, but if you ask me you're asking for trouble by pushing it this way.

Photo: Garlic curing in the warm dry barn.

6. Storing Garlic

How to store garlic? The at-home ideal for storing garlic is between 55 and 70 degrees, with moderate humidity and good air circulation, in the light but out of the sun. We keep our garlic stored in baskets in the cold closet (a.k.a. the inner cold room, an insulated section of the unheated sunporch next to Bill's office). Those less fortunate in the storage department can punt as necessary with good results as long as they avoid the refrigerator (excess cold leads to sprouting) and plastic bags (no air = high humidity = rot).

Source: TheDailyGreen.com

Gardening in February

G

et ready for seed-sowing. Make sure you have good-quality soil-based or soilless seed compost. Before you buy, check bags are fresh, avoiding leftovers from last year. Clean pots, trays and modules before sowing.

If you didn’t plant garlic in autumn, you can still plant suitable cultivars such as 'Solent Wight’ at the end of the month.

 Prune back stems of autumn raspberries close to ground level. For a smaller but earlier crop, cut about one third of the stems in half. Select the strongest shoots and prune just below the point where they fruited. Remove those stems after harvest.

Check apricots, peaches (pictured) and nectarines under cover as they may start flowering. Hand pollinate using a soft brush.

Cold and humidity can encourage fuzzy grey mould (Botrytis cinerea) on leaves, stems or flower buds of plants overwintering under glass. Remove any dead or dying foliage. Water and improve ventilation to reduce humidity.

Prune shoots of overwintering fuchsias to one or two buds.

If you can maintain the temperature at about 10C (50F), pot up dahlia tubers and start bringing them into growth.

In milder areas, start pruning hybrid tea and floribunda roses; in colder areas the pruning is best delayed until March.

Finish off cutting back perennial and deciduous ornamental grasses, getting the beds ready for mulching.

Remove some of the older leaves and damaged or diseased foliage of hellebores when the flower buds start to emerge.

Prune shrubs grown for winter stem colour, such as Cornus alba, Cornus sanguinea and Salix alba. Prune back all stems to two buds (two pairs of buds for Cornus) of the previous season’s growth.

Renovate deciduous hedges such as beech and hornbeam. If healthy, they will tolerate reduction by up to about 50 per cent in height and width, but such drastic pruning is best spread over two seasons.

WARM THE SOIL FOR EARLY SOWING

To start sowing outdoors early, consider pre-warming a patch of soil. When the ground is not too wet, first cultivate the soil, incorporating organic matter and fertiliser if needed. Cover the soil with clear plastic film or cloches. It is also possible to use black polythene, but ensure a good contact with the soil. Fleece is less effective. To keep the sheet in place, tuck it into the soil, or weigh the edges down with bricks.

Leave in place for six weeks until you are ready to sow. After sowing, cover the soil with cloches or fleece to protect the germinating seeds and young plants from the worst weather.

Clay soils are slower to warm up as they hold a large amount of water. Unless water is lost to evaporation, pre-warming will not be very effective. It is preferable to use cloches on clay.

Crops to try

Early carrots ('Adelaide’, 'Yukon’)

Bolt-resistant beetroot ('Boltardy’)

Broad bean ('Masterpiece Green Longpod ’ 'Witkiem Manita’)

Kohl rabi ('Kolibri’)

Lettuce ('Little Gem’, 'Merveille de Quatre Saisons’)

Parsnip ('Gladiator’, ’Archer’)

Peas ('Feltham First’, 'Douce Provence’)

Radish ('Sparkler’)

Salad onions ('White Lisbon’, 'Purpette’)

Shallot ('Long Red Florence’)

Turnips ('Atlantic’, 'Milan Purple Top’)

PLANT OF THE MONTH

Narcissus 'February Gold'

This is a vigorous daffodil for early spring colour. The single flowers are golden yellow and 7.5cm (3in) wide, and the perianth segments (outer petals) are slightly reflexed (curved back). The flowers reach about 30cm (12in) tall.

Bulbs are best planted in the autumn in moist but well-drained soil and in full sun or light shade. Wear gloves when handling daffodil bulbs as the sap can cause skin irritation. Make sure that the soil is moist when in full growth and let the foliage die down naturally.

If necessary, lift, divide and replant once the foliage starts to die down after flowering. 

Source of Article:  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/

Management of Thrips in Garlic

Garlic is widely used as a condiment in Indian cuisine, especially for its medicinal properties.

It is grown in Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Utter Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana and Tamil Nadu (Nilgiris and Kodaikanal hills).

Among the insect pests, the onion thrips, Thrips tabaci is a major one injuring garlic.

Damage symptoms

Both nymphs and adults cause injury to the plants by sucking the vital leaf sap.

They remain in dense concentrations at leaf bases and whorls and feed by lacerating the tissues and imbibing the oozing cell sap.

The infestation develops a spotted appearance on the leaves, subsequently turning into silvery white blotches. The leaf tips fade and the basal portions get blighted and distorted from tip downwards and finally the plant dries up. The affected plants yield less, with small sized bulbs.

Adults are slender, yellowish brown and measure about 1mm in length and have narrow fringed wings.

Eggs are laid singly in tender leaves by making slits with sharp ovipositors by the females.

A single female lays 40-50 eggs which hatch after 4-9 days. The entire life cycle is completed in 11-21 days. There are more than ten generations per year. The pest occurs on garlic from November to May and migrates to other crops from June.

Management

Varieties with open type growth and circular leaf structure are not preferred by thrips.

Tolerant varieties of Garlic viz. G-2, G-19, LCG-1, Ooty-1 may be utilised for cultivation.

Higher doses of nitrogenous fertilizers and close planting should be avoided.

Clean cultivation, regular hoeing and flooding of infested field will check the thrips population.

Insect predators like green lacewing fly and tiny ladybird beetles check the population of this pest.

Application of profenofos or malathion 0.05 per cent, methyl demeton 0.025 per cent , monocrotophos 0.036 per cent, formothion 0.025 per cent, dimethoate 0.03 per cent, carbaryl 0.1 per cent or phorate 10G at 10kg/hectare could control the pest.

Mr.Jayaraj (Author)

About Author:

J. Jayaraj, associate prof and R.K. Murali Baskaran Professor & Head, Dept of Entomology, Agricultural College and Research Institute, Madurai 625 104, email: vu2jrj@rediffmail.com, phone: 0452- 2422956 Extn: 214

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