White rot? So... I guess I'll have to move house...

[Kaiya]

That was my honest to goodness first thought when I discovered my poor garlic had white rot. I *live* to grow alliums. The leeks are looking a little rusty too and are very small/wonky, though no obvious rot yet so am giving them the benefit of the doubt, and the shallots, chives and onions are all fine. Very odd. What's also odd is that when I bought this house last spring the previous owner hade huge happy leeks in the same beds. I suspect he relied a lot on glyphosate and fertiliser as I've found the soil to be poor and lacking organic material compared to my old allotment - even my French beans aren't growing and the only success so far is overwintered brassicas. However even taking that into consideration I think either my online garlic imported white rot or I am incredibly unlucky. I can't remember who I bought it from so won't list names in fear of slandering the innocent but it was a pack of overwintering allium sets (red and white onions, garlic and shallots) from one of the big two retailers.

Anyway - I plan to re-landscape the garden with raised beds and bought in top soil - has anyone had luck with ridding themselves of white rot by using raised beds?

Also, one note of positivity - the purple wight is largely unaffected. The white garlics have succumbed, whereas the purple are generally intact, even in the same beds. Which either suggests the white imported it, or the purple are a bit more resistant.

[Scarlet]

I have it too. Out a bed of about 80 cloves I managed to save just a few I feel a little disheartened. Try not to move your soil around, it may well just be in that area.
As for the leeks being small, have you fed them? Added any manure to the bed before planting. How close together did you plant them? A friend of mine grows leeks. I often have his leek seedlings. His leeks are always twice the size of mine. He spaces them well apart & uses plenty of feed. You should also follow some kind of crop rotation.

[Greenleaves]

I had the same issue with my garlic this year, rust to start then the rot. Done a bit of research and apparently both are encouraged by high nitrogen content. Going to leave the bed fallow for a year, then plant brassicas to lower the nitrogen content...might help then again it might not, why I love gardening, no two years are the same

[Martin H]

I have it this year too. Three out of the first 16 garlic bulbs that I lifted have got white rot and I've dug up two onions with the disease as well.

Next year I'll grow something else in these beds and I'm going to try this treatment to clean up the beds. The theory sounds good and I've got enough spare garlic. Obviously I won't know if it worked until 2019 at the earliest when the rotation brings alliums back to these beds!