Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Growing => Grow Your Own => Topic started by: angelcakes on June 15, 2011, 10:23
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Some of my onions have started to wilt and die. Pulling them up I have found a fluffy white mould with black bits on it on the bulb which is soft. Looking it up it looks like white onion rot :( My garlic has just started doing the same. Does anyone have any advice about what I should do? We've grown both & leeks over the past 4 years with no problems. Any ideas where it may have come from? Would it have been dormant in the soil? We grew onions in the same bed in 2009 with no rot. I'm a bit concerned as we have a lot of leeks :( just planted out
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I don't know whether or not it will harm your leeks but the onions need to be used as soon as possible.
Have you watered them a good deal or has the ground been wet?
It would be best to avoid planting onion family in this area for quite some time. :(
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It sounds like bad news angelcakes- have a look at a recent thread http://chat.allotment-garden.org/index.php?topic=78845.0
As Learner says you would be wise to avoid planting any of the alium family in that bed for some time. It persists for ages once it is in the soil but checkout the link in the other thread where it is suggested that by watering in garlic powder it is possible to "trick" spores into germinating only to then find no alium plant to host them so they die.
I am in the same boat as you having found my garlic and onions are infected. I have lifted them both, sorted out the "good" garlic for storage and plan on using the infected stuff soon. Some just needs chucking. WARNING - dont put the affected stuff into your compost.
Good luck!
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Thanks for your speedy response am going to lift them today to find the extent of the problem :(. I think we may have inadvertently overwatered them in the dry spell :unsure: I found blackleg on some of our potatoes for the same reason! The remaining potatoes have make a good recovery :)so hopefully any unaffected onions will do the same!