Garlic and garlic

Garlic and garlic

This year's catastrophic garlic harvest in June has today meant that a strong steam of garlic has spread throughout the kitchen garden.

The garlic had been affected by white rot, a fungal disease that attacks members of the onion family. Once the infection has occurred, there are no control options, and the disease leads to the onion eventually rotting - which my garlic did to a large extent.

The fungal spores are in the soil, and here no dear crop rotation plan helps once the damage has occurred. They can survive in dormancy for at least 10-15 years while lying and waiting for some new bulbs to come into the ground that they can throw themselves over.

If the entire kitchen garden is more or less infected, you must ultimately switch to growing onions in pots with soil from the outside.

However, experiments are being carried out to dilute the extract of garlic on the infected area, whereby the fungal spores are awakened to life, but since there is still no onion plant on which they can live, they subsequently perish.

So today, the 4 upcoming onion and leek beds have got garlic. And since I did not think I would sacrifice my own too few healthy onions on the project, it is just as well (and easier) to use garlic powder from the feed business department for horses. 30 gr. Stirred in 10 liters of water per. m2. It should preferably be done at a soil temperature of 15-18 °, so it was also soon the deadline for this year.

The upcoming (small new) garlic bed will instead get new soil, as the dilution should preferably take place at least 6 months before onions are to be planted in the soil - and that's just a little while.

Written by Peter Norris