rusty garlic

One patch of my garlic is also smothered in rust but having pulled some, the bulbs and inner leaves are untouched despite the horrific appearance of the outer leaves so don't worry about that too much. It's presence is a mystery as I split my cloves between two beds in  the plot and the second patch is clear of the disease and neither had alliums in last year.
Despite the rust, purple wight has given me huge stinky bulbs (OH even mistook them for giant red onions when they were still in the ground), this year and solent wight also looks like it will give decent bulbs, less so red german.
Check previous posts as I am sure  someone has posted about preserving their crop in a similar way to the comercial lazy garlic which would be one way of deling with unsplit bulbs

My Garlic was also covered in rust,but once the outer leaves were peeled away,no problems.
I also had quite a few rotted garlic(and onions),this was unfortunately caused by "white rot"
I looked it up on the net and found out it can stay in the soil for upto 18 years
The only thing i can find on the market  to help the situation is "armillatox"
Good luck

What causes it though is what I'd mostly like to find out, I have no interest in blasting it with chemicals 

My Garlic looks like its turning into my first growing failure.

The 4 i have pulled so far have been rotten expecting at least a 90% failure rate.

Let us know how yours come out Yorkie, might go and have another looksy at mine today will also have a walk around the site and see how everone elses is coming along.