Garlic

Vampire's kryptonite 

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Garlic (Allium sativum L.) has been an invaluable part of the human story for as long as civilization has made us of plant remedies. Its cultivation and use has been thoroughly documented in Sumeria, Egypt, Greece and Rome.
Archaeological investigations uncovered a 3,500-year-old Egyptian papyrus clearly listing it as a medicinal plant that can be used to treat a variety of ailments, and, more surprisingly, six intact garlic bulbs were found in the Egyptian pharaoh-king Tutankhamen’s excavated tomb (Raver, 1991). The era’s multivolume medical text called the Codex Ebers listed garlic as a prescription for ailments ranging from circulatory problems to infectious wounds and parasitic infestations (Bergner, 1996; Lawson 1998). Modern discoveries attribute garlic with having antifungal, antibacterial, antiviral, antithrombotic and antitumor properties (among others) (Keusgen, 2002).

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In Ancient Greece it was supposedly fed to athletes competing in the Olympics as a primitive performance enhancer (Green and Polydoris, 1993; Lawson, 1998), while Hippocrates (who many regard as the father of Medicinal Science) advocated the use of garlic to treat and cure the sick (Moyers 1996).

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The Ancient Romans also perceived garlic as a plant of power, strength and endurance – regularly consumed by soldiers and sailors (Green and Polydoris, 1993).
Garlic is native to Middle Asia (Jancic, 2002), and the use of garlic as a culinary delicacy and medicinal substance also has its roots in Asia, with the leading estimate placing it at approximately 2,000 BC in ancient China, and has been a part of Indian Auryvedic medicine since they started accumulating written records.

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Cultivation:

Garlic can be propagated from either seed or by starting the plant via the bulb, which is segmented into cloves. Each clove has the potential to produce another full bulb. The cloves will be planted in Rockwool starter cubes, and after root development, be transplanted into the hydroponic baskets that integrate them into the hydroponic circuit. The baskets will contain the same soilless combination that our Basil plants will be growing in, namely a mixture of perlite, vermiculite, peat and expanded clay pellets, with the same geometrically arranged drip emitter system providing nutrient and water irrigating to the newly rooted cloves.

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Garlic integrates perfectly into our hydroponic system since it is a companion plant to both tomato and basil, also thriving within the 6.0-7.0 pH range already established for the other two plant species, making this a potent trio of plants that will benefit one another in more than one way. Our entire system will be operating with grow lights keeping them all in either a 16/8 cycle, or 18/6 cycle, depending on the phase of growth.



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- Leo.
18199658
Citations:

  • Raver, A. (1991) The cultivated Gardener; what vegetable besides garlic has a fai club? New York Times (99), P 68.
  • Keusgen, M. (2002) Health and Alliums. In: Rabinowitch HD, Currah L (Eds) Allum Crop Science: Recent Advances, CAB International, Oxon, UK, pp 357-378.
  • Green, O. C., III & Polydoris, N. G. (1993) The chemistry of garlic and onions. Garlic, Cancer and Heart Disease: Review and Recommendations  :21–41 GN Communications Chicago, IL.
  • Lawson, L. D. (1998) Garlic: a review of its medicinal effects and indicated active compounds. In: Phytomedicines of Europe. Chemistry and Biological Activity. ACS Symposium Series 691  (Lawson, L. D. & Bauer, R. eds.), pp. 176–209. American Chemical Society, Washington, DC.
  • Moyers, S. (1996) History of garlic. Garlic in Health, History and World Cuisine  :1–36 Suncoast Press St. Petersburg, FL.
  • Jancic R. Beograd: Sluzbeni list SRJ; 2002. Botanika farmaceutika; p. 247.
  • Bergner, P. (1996) The Healing Power of Garlic :3-26 Prima Publishing Rocklin, CA.

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