Garlic Rust [ braamekraal/ ]

That's it!  The garlic has succumbed to Rust. It's quite usual, really, just not so early.  Normally I can just leave the bulbs in the ground until  November, and still get a fair harvest, and they give me a pretty good return despite the Rust.  This year, though, the Rust has been exceptionally early, and many most of the plants have just keeled over.  Feeling around in the soil tells me that the Garlic bulbs are still very small, and far from harvestable.  If I leave them to the depradations of the Rust, they'll do nothing further at all, and we'll end up with a dismal Garlic harvest.  Being a family that takes its Garilc seriously, this is a disaster.

Since I claim, half heartedly (or is that half-arsedly?) to be a research gardener, I'm trying a small experiment: I've chopped the (totally rust-infested) leaves off about 1/3 of the plants.  Of course they've immediately started pushing out new leaves, but I'm hoping that they won't get affected as quickly as when they have an existing load of orange-brown leaves.

Time will tell; I'm even contemplating trialling a Summer planting of Garlic (something I've never done before) as a Path To Recovery.

Life without Garlic is just unthinkable!


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04.Oct.07  5:34 PM, SAST | Words (209) | 0 Trackbacks | Link Cosmos