Garlic Rust, update

The garlic problem hopefully addressed, it will be a trial anyway to see if the rust can be contained or cured. It was reading Cazaux's blog that I found out there even was such a thing as garlic rust. I visited Stewart in my veggie garden down under as he has been doing garlic trials and told him of the problem and asked for advice which he duly delivered in the comments of the post which I have copied and posted here in case anyone else should need it.
there is several things you can do.
First is remove the infected leaves.
Second is apply sulphate of potash at a rate of 20/25g per sq/mtr, this helps harden tissues and improves resistance.
I can't tell how close your plants are from your photos, but they need to be at least 20cm apart so you may need to thin them out a bit.
next you can spray your plants and the surrounding soil with a sulphur based fungicide or zineb every two weeks or after rain.
Last, spread a fine dryish mulch over your soil to help stop any rust spores reinfecting your garlic.
Good luck Peggy and I hope you can still get a crop from them.
Let me know how you get on.
And definitely no extra nitrogenous fertilizers.

I also asked for advice on irish gardeners forum and again got instant and knowledgeable advice, you can read the complete thread here I used a combination of solutions as I wanted to stay organic and not use a chemical fungicide if possible.
I took Stewart's advice and cut off all of the leaves that had any sign of rust, while doing so I found that the rust spreads down the leaf from the tip. I binned everything which I cut as throwing it on the compost heap could cause more problems later.I put down the sulphate of potash and covered the ground with a thick mulch of hay to stop any of the rust spores going down to the bulb.I then used an organic spray with water, breadsoda, veg oil and washing up liquid from the site recommended by garlicbreath, a contributor to the thread on Irish gardeners forum, again it is from an Australian site and has lots of organic sprays which you can make up yourself to combat most garden bugs and diseases well worth a visit.
I earthed up the potatoes which are well up now. There are 2 drills of Orla a first early, 4 of Colleen a second early,2 drills of Charlotte, 1 drill of Home guard seed another first early and a drill of volunteers! Some of the stalks came out of the side of a drill and made it a bit harder to earth them up in a straight line so while they may not be symmetrical they are growing which is more important!
I took out the brussels sprouts and summer cabbage and put them into the brassica bed on the new plot.I removed the netting from the Purple sprouting broccoli and used it to protect the younger arrivals.The broccoli is about 4 feet high but not producing much in the way of florets, for the amount of time and space it has taken up all winter I would not be in too much of a hurry to grow it again
The sweet corn took a battering in the high winds we have had, I had a roll of bubble wrap at home and brought it out to make a barrier for it.The squash is in here also so they have a little micro climate inside the bubble wrap barrier.
A view down the first plot which is looking good this year!The fruit bed in the foreground has strawberries, raspberries,blackcurrants and blueberries, all have blossoms and I gave the bed a feed of sulphate of potash last week.The next bed down has seeds of beetroot,swiss chard,spinach, parsnips carrots and broad beans as well as marigolds in. All the seeds directly sown have barely come to the surface it is so cold and wet lately.
The next bed down is asparagus,PSB and rhubarb.
Garlic and onions in the next bed
Then 4 smaller beds across the width, of runner beans, red cabbage, cauliflower and peas and finally the spuds so we are down to the wire no more hard digging in this plot after nearly 3 years!

Comments

Siddons said…
Hi Peggy, a comment on your comment re the purple sprouting broccoli. I've grown it two years running now and have got a huge harvest both years. I have noticed this year that I have about 5 plants that haven't produced any florets. Plenty of leaf growth but no flowers. Is this the case with yours? I've no idea why this might be so. Do you have any ideas? Sara
Tracy Bruring said…
Your garden is looking amazingly beautiful and productive.
Linda said…
If your volunteer potatoes are true volunteers and not a named variety! do watch out for blight from them - see my recent post.

Good luck with all your garlic cossetting. I've had some rusty patches for the past few years but they've never amounted to much, but if they do I'll know what to do now.
Anonymous said…
Will your garden supply enough veges for you for the whole year? I mean if you can and all? It sure looks nice and well tended. I enjoy reading your fixes and successes.
sharonl said…
Wow! your plot looks great! We haven't got garlic down yet, going to plant some in October/November hopefully. Will keep this page in mind. If our plot gets to look even remotely like yours I'll be very happy!
Anonymous said…
what a beautiful blog! i was really happy to find it. i realize this post about garlic is a year old but i found it because my garlic is having the same problem. i'm wondering if your solution produced good results. specifically, i'm wondering about the straw mulch. did it prevent the rust from spreading? thanks so much for all of the useful info!
-margot

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