It’s always hard to take pictures of my garlic plants, because I have so many of them growing close together, but in the middle of this picture (the plants with their base at the bottom center) are some of my rustiest plants. This is Kransnodar White garlic. Kransnodar is a city in Siberia, and I think it was famous for it’s garlic in Soviet days. In a few days these plants will be dead for sure, but I may still be able to harvest something from them.
I remember from last year this variety got rust badly too, and the bulbs I harvested were on the small side.
Another variety getting bad rust is Tuscan, an Italian variety:
These pictures don’t have enough resolution to see it clearly, but it looks like these plants have pox or something. They are covered in lots of small brown spots.
I would say in general the rust seems worse than last year, but it’s still too early to say how bad it really is. I’m so close to harvest, that every week the plants stay alive is very important. These two pictures represent the worst, and most of my garlic really seems to be doing okay for the moment. The severity of the rust seems to depend on the location in the garden, as well as the variety. I’m learning the quality of soil in my garden varies greatly from spot to spot, and it’s clear that has an impact on the severity of the rust. Exactly what the factors are behind this is less than clear however.
It’s been my intention to reduce the number of varieties I have, so any that get particularly bad rust which are not otherwise interesting, will probably get discarded.
Now I’m waiting for the potato blight to arrive. It’s getting to be about time for that too!
Dry and Windy Weather
It’s been very dry recently. Not particularly hot, but the wind is really drying out the ground. Established plants in my garden don’t need a lot of watering, because while the water table is going down a bit in this weather, it’s not too far down and anything with deep roots can reach it. I’ve recently planted some beans and a few other seeds, and it’s been a challenge to keep them wet enough to germinate, because the ground is so sandy every time I add water it just drains through. Parts of my garden are even rich with seashells!
So far the only victim of the wind were a few of my Jerusalem artichoke plants, but I guess these will grow back.
This dry weather has really given me a different perspective on the soil of my garden. Beside noticing how sandy it is, I’ve been noticing anything that’s not growing next to beans has not been doing very well, which seems to go along with my soil test of a few months ago that showed a general lack of nitrogen. It’s also just increasingly clear the ground is very lacking in organic material. I have really added a lot of compost in recent months brought from my previous garden, but it has not really had a lot of time to become incorporated and more would probably help.
I’ve noticed the ground in my garden is mostly ‘dead’. There are very few worms or insects living in it, with the exception of a lot of ants.
If you are a commercial farmer (at least in this part of the world), the ideal situation is ‘dead’ ground. Organic material is usually not desirable, and is best avoided when possible. Pure clay, silt or sand, or some mixture of these three is the best. The reason for this is farmers have a system of growing crops with chemicals that works very well for them, and if the ground is ‘dead’ there are simply fewer variables for them to deal with. The nutrient balance of the ground (or perhaps the complete lack of nutrients) is generally known in advance so a preset amount of fertilizer can be added. Most chemical fertilizers don’t remain in the ground for more than a growing season, because they are water soluble, so every year you are starting fresh. All of the pests and diseases are mostly known quantities, and there are chemicals available to deal with these.
It’s part of the culture here that individual thinking is not encouraged, and there is often a social price to be paid if you think and act differently than others. Perhaps in part for this reason, most people here seem to take the same approach with gardening that farmers take, and prefer ‘dead’ ground with chemicals added. It’s certainly an issue that divides people mostly according to nationality in my garden complex, with compost being made and used mostly by non-Dutch born gardeners, and the point of some contention. Since the previous gardener was Dutch-born, it’s logical to think the approach he took was to promote dead ground, but I don’t know for sure.
It’ll be interesting to see how my garden changes as I add more organic material, and try to promote more life processes in the soil. I’m curious how long it will take before I notice real changes.
I’m having the same problem with my soil, its not dead, but its very poor in organic matter. I’m incorporating compost and composted sheep’s manure, we’ll see how it evolves.
I’m sorry to hear about your sad soil.
I found your comment about the local culture very interesting. Isn’t it amazing how the way people garden reflects so much about what their intrinsic, sometimes even unconscious, values are?
Yes, I can imagine this has to do something with (gardening) culture…
I’m Belgian, living in Belgium but working in the Netherlands. Part of the reason I work in the Netherlands, is the ordered way the Netherlands ‘work’, and the reason I don’t want to live in the Netherlands is… exactly, the ordered way of living.
Just cross the border between Belgium and the Netherlands, and you know what I mean. (OK, I know, I admit, Belgium is an ugly country just because of that.)
The ordered Dutch front-yards are proverbial in Belgium: neat, clean, whithout a moulded leave… without a crooked twig…
(I’m afraid my frontyard is far from Dutch, as is the rest of our ‘permaculture’ garden…)
I’m learning a lot about garlic rust these years. I had it first time last year, after growing garlic for 20 years. For me it’s very helpfull to study the pictures and learn from others experience.
Very interesting, that some garlics seems more prone to rust than others.
I start to get the impression, that the local pressure from overwintered black spores could be important for the severity of the early attack. Since a week or two can make a difference in final garlic size, I think it’s worth being a bit dutch cleaning the garden for infected leaves at harvest time. Wonder if they could be buried or composted over years instead?
In 1980 I lived short time in a dutch village, most gardens were extremely orderly, but a few were more relaxed, and I remember a lady was growing organic using compost.
In my experience, individual thinking is more obvious in my own culture, whereas in foreign cultures I tend to se people more as a group. But if I analyse a different culture I start to find new ways people express themselves individually. I guess we people tend to express our individualty in different areas of life in different cultures.
Do you know any varieties that are more resistant to rust? Modern technology seems to have provided us with all sorts of resistant varieties of all sorts of veg. I used to suffer badly with mosaic virus on courgettes till I found a resistant variety.
Christina: I agree! There are a lot of different nationalities as well as a wide variety of personalities at our gardening complex, and it’s great fun watching them garden and looking at the differences. You can really learn a lot about a person by the way they garden.
AnneTanne: Thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment! Your blog looks really interesting, and when I get a chance I’m going to have a closer look.
For the non-Dutch speakers reading this, her blog is about different herbs.
I both agree and disagree with you about the way Dutch people work. I like the ordered nature, and the way people here draw a line between work and home, but I also always feel there are not enough opportunities here.
As of last year, a record number of people were leaving the Netherlands to live in other countries, including Belgium of course. Most people leaving said either it was because of the poor state of relations between Dutch born people and those originally from other countries, or because of the lack of good working opportunities. I tend to agree about work.
I don’t think Belgium is ugly at all. There are many pretty places like many of the old cities or the mountains, but also the countryside. I think the people that live there are nice too! Perhaps not as tidy as the Netherlands, but far from ugly. The Netherlands can get a bit boring sometimes, but I always think there are interesting things to look at in Belgium.
Søren: I never compost my garlic, tomato or potato waste. I always put these in the trash. I think the risk of contamination is too great.
You may be interested to know there are people here with ‘organic’ gardens that also promote dead ground and without the use of compost. Instead of chemical fertilizer, they use ‘natural’ alternatives. A typical example would be to use of fresh manure as fertilizer. Many organic farmers try to operate along these lines! I don’t know of many that are successful, but many people try.
Matron: Resistant to rust would be a pretty big over-statement, but there are a few that show some indication that rust is a little less of a problem. I saw this last year on some Silverskin varieties like Chilean Silver or Silver Rose. The silverskins seem to have slightly different pigment in their leaves, and this seemed to slow the rust a little. I haven’t looked carefully at it this year.
Also a few varieties that grew big and strong (Susan Delafield, Gazebo Grande and a few others) stood up to the rust better just by virtue of being bigger and stronger. Like we’ve just been talking about, when it comes to rust the plants staying alive just a few weeks longer makes all the difference, and that’s what happens here.
Last year Rebsie said her Music garlic stood up to the rust, whereas other varieties in her garden didn’t.
Like I mentioned in this post a few varieties are more susceptible to rust, and this is a lot easier to say with more certainty.
Also like I’ve posted about before, adding too much nitrogen or using fresh manure is strongly associated to more problems with rust.
You might also look in to my garlic seed post from a few days ago and see what was mentioned about rust there. Since rust develops when the humidity is over 97% for more than 4 hours, but not when the plants are wet, it might be possible to set up an automated sprinkler system to water the plants when they are at risk.
Resistance to rust is something that’s been discussed between garlic growers for some years now and as far as I know no one has come across any varieties that show any degree of true resistance.
This is now my forth year growing garlic and having rust, and at least until now the rust has never been too serious. I think with some common sense gardening techniques, it’s possible to live with the rust without serious problems. This was in the past, and it’s very possible I will be shedding tears over my plants in a few weeks!