Kitchen Garden Forum

Dug up all my garlic yesterday. Sadly it seems to have been affected by onion white rot, the majority of it. This was on my allotment where I planted loads of the stuff last autumn, 4 different varieties from 2 suppliers. The previous 2 years I've planted bulbs from the supermarket in my garden and they grew brilliantly, so I am pretty disappointed with my lottie harvest.
I've read the other very informative post on this topics, and the link therein, but do have one question I wonder if someone can answer.
2 weeks ago I dug up a couple of bulbs, they were perfect but not yet ready to harvest because the cloves were still welded together. Was going to check again last week but didn't get down there, then this week when I did harvest them it was after all that heavy rain. Question is: do you think I could have saved a lot more if I'd got them out before the rain, or wouldn't it have made much difference?

I dug mine before the rain as I found in a previous year that if you had rain just as they were ready then the darn things started to regrow and wouldn't keep over winter.I've never had a problem with mildew or rot (touch wood!)but I could imagine that the hot and wet might very well start it off.

That's what I did too Carole, and with the onions - didn't want them to wake up when they were just settling down for their long sleep. I have had a few with white rot carrie, I don't know the answer to your question but it feels right that damp conditions would encourage a fungus, doesn't it?

Carrie wrote:Dug up all my garlic yesterday. Sadly it seems to have been affected by onion white rot, the majority of it. This was on my allotment where I planted loads of the stuff last autumn, 4 different varieties from 2 suppliers.

Can I just check - did you plant your garlic in the same patch of ground two years running?

Like many veg, garlic needs to be rotated to a new patch each year. Some advice says that garlic shouldn't go back into the same patch more often than once every 4 years (and for commercial growers, they may do one every six years).

Don't know why, but I think that if your crop doesget any diseases, they are passed on easily.

The same probably also goes for mixing garlic with any other alliums.

If this isn't what you did, please accept my apologies.

Hi Colin, This year (i.e, last autumn planting) was the first time I had garlic on the allotment, the previous year there were potatoes on that patch, and before that the plot belonged to someone else. I've planted garlic in successive years on the same patch in my garden without problem, thought of it as an easy crop, hence my disapointment at the allotment crop!
I now have leeks waiting to go in somewhere - I won't put them in directly where the garlic was, but I wonder how far away they need to be? I suupose the problem could be localised, or wide-spread, and I won't know till I plant them!