Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Growing => Grow Your Own => Topic started by: mrsparkle on November 18, 2011, 09:26
-
Hi all.
I have had a rather busy year and unfortunately haven't been able to dedicate the time to my plot that I had hoped to. This means i've had no time to prepare any space for my garlic.
I do have 3 beds cleared and i'm unsure whichwill be best for garlic. From the following choices which would you suggest?
Bed 1: Brassicas this yea. I'm guessing this is going to be too alkaline to grow a good garlic crop.
Bed 2: Potatoes this year but this bed had garlic and shallots in 2010. Manured back January. However, I cut the potato plants back in july/aug to stop growth and left them in the ground so I could collect the potatoes as I needed them. I got the last potatoes out yesterday. Will this have damaged/infected the soil?
Bed 3: Lettuce/french beans/spring onions this year, pumpkin in 2010. This bed has not been manured since I took the plot in 2010 and may not have been manured for a while before that.
So...... that's my dilemma. Which bed would you choose to plant your garlic/onions?
I would really appreciate your advice.
Mr Sparkle
-
I wouldn't be overly concerned about putting them in any of the beds to be honest as long as it well drained.
-
Agree with Baz, they grow in any place as long as its well drained. Just stick them in and watch them pop up :D
-
To digress slightly, is white rot the only disease/rotation concern with all the onion family? As I understand it, white rot is really only going to come in via direct contact (whether you or the soil/crop/tools) with infected onions. But is there any other disease that makes rotation important for onions?
-
Allium leaf miner comes to mind immediately
-
Yes, allium leaf miner - I've had it for the first time this year in my leeks. There is leek moth to consider as well.
Try to avoid the beds that have had aliums in recently, although if you can be certain you haven't had any of these problems on your plot it probably doesn't pose too much of a risk.
-
Im not sure about the illnesses they can get but my garlics have got rust every year i've grown them.
While not fatal it doesn't look nice. How can I prevent this happening next summer?
-
Rust is a fungal disease.
Don't crowd plants together, dispose of affected plant remnants instead of composting, take care with fertiliser applications - says the RHS (http://apps.rhs.org.uk/advicesearch/Profile.aspx?pid=214)