I remember times gone by when you could take a clove of garlic, push it into some fertile growing medium and about 6 months later be rewarded with a fat bulb of cloves.

No problems easy as and nice to do.

Garlic rust (caused by the fungus Puccinia allii) was first recorded on garlic in New Zealand as early as 1965. However, it only became an explosive, widespread agricultural and home-garden problem across the country around the mid-2010s,

specifically becoming highly prevalent around 2015.

The disease thrives in cool, humid, and wet environments.

It spreads via wind-borne spores, coating the foliage with bright orange-yellow pustules that stunt growth and drastically reduce bulb size.

The general advise that is given is the following:

Plant Early: Instead of the traditional winter solstice, growers in wet, humid regions plant their cloves as early as March or May.

This ensures the plants are well-established and sizing up their bulbs before the rust hits hard in late winter or spring.

Better Airflow: Spacing plants wider and avoiding dense, damp patches helps foliage dry out faster, which slows the spread of the fungus.

Alternative Options: Many home gardeners turn to elephant garlic (which is actually a leek and thus immune to the rust) or practice aggressive crop rotation to avoid overwintering spores.

In my case I have searched and tried various things to grow a decent crop of garlic and in some methods have had a slight improvement but really nothing to write home about.

The best I and a few other gardeners have found to improve the size of the bulbs was simply using what I call Liquid Sunshine every few days on the foliage even when leaves are covered in the rust to get better size bulbs at harvest time.

(Table spoon of molasses into a litre of hot water and and 10 mils of Magic Botanic Liquid added, spraying the foliage often from the start of a show of green to maturity)

Not a complete solution but it certainly helps.

This last week I had a telephone conversation with a fellow gardener and he told me how he was able to beat the garlic rust problem.

Some time ago I wrote an article about using aspirin to prevent disease problems in plants.

It was very simply to take about 325 mg of uncoated aspirin and dissolve it into 4 litres of (ideally) non chlorinated water and spray that over and under plants for complete coverage.

The diluted aspirin spray is sometimes used on plants to help stimulate their natural defenses, which may improve resistance to some diseases and, in some cases, pests.

This of course works best on plants that are growing naturally not plants that are feed nitrogen rich fertlisers containing acidic superphosphate or chemical rescue sprays.

Both those aspects prevent natural growth and natural immune systems.

Repeat spray over garlic about every couple of weeks till harvest.

Also here is an interesting thought, spraying your food plants a few days to a week before harvesting not only kicks in the plant’s natural defense mechanism but would impart those valuable properties to your body when you consume the plant.

 Something to think about health wise.

Well my informant told me that he plants his garlic earlier than the shortest day and as soon as the first green leaves appear he sprays the foliage every few days with his aspirin spray till harvest.

This worked for him and I think it is a good thing to also try when you grow your garlic this season.

Garlic are gross feeders so a rich fertile growing medium or soil with ample animal manure is ideal.

When growing any food plants I suggest either putting into the planting hole or sprinkling over the growing area before planting seeds or seedlings the following products, Wallys Ocean Solids, Wallys Real Blood & Bone, Unlocking the Soil and BioPhos…

Now here is another interesting one to add and that is Brown Sugar which will give the plants extra carbohydrates though their roots.

Prepare the growing area for your garlic this season with the above things and when the garlic cloves shoot with their first show of green leaves have made up a mixture of the following,

Dissolve about 4 tablespoons of molasses in a litre of hot water then add 40 mils of Magic Botanic Liquid and a 300mg uncoated aspirin.

Put the 1 litre mix into a another 3 litres of water making a total of 4 litres of spray. Store in a suitable container and then fill a trigger sprayer with the mix and spray every few days your garlic as it is growing.

The mix should keep ok stored out of light and given a shake before using again.

Hopefully we will as a result of our efforts have nice big bulbs to harvest like we used to have.

Another tip to ensure there are no rust spores on the cloves you plant soak them in a solution of potassium permanent for a short time before planting.

(Quarter a teaspoon which is supplied in out potassium permanganate into a litre of water)

Spray the soil in the area you are going to plant with the potassium permanganate mix you soaked the cloves in. Most important if you grew garlic last season and had garlic rust.

Now for something a bit different…..

If you would like to watch/listen to my last gardening session with Rodney Hide it is here

https://rcr.media/episodes/wally-richards-gardening-guru-winter-gardening-wisdom-and-soil-secrets

I saw on MSM this week a very interesting item:

Bayer has launched a series of patent infringement lawsuits in US federal courts against major COVID-19 vaccine makers.

Filed in Delaware and New Jersey, Bayer and its subsidiary Monsanto allege that Pfizer, BioNTech, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson utilized foundational mRNA stabilization technology without permission.

The Technology: The lawsuits revolve around patented technology developed by Monsanto in the 1980s and 90s, which describes a method to optimize codon sequences and stabilize messenger RNA (mRNA).

The Allegation: Bayer argues that while the technology was initially designed for agricultural purposes­specifically to make crops resistant to pests­the vaccine makers misappropriated it to stabilize genetic material in their COVID-19 vaccines.

The Legal Action: Bayer is seeking unspecified monetary damages and backdated license fees/royalties, rather than an injunction to halt vaccine production.

The company argues it deserves to be compensated for intellectual property that underpinned a multibillion-dollar market.

Source: Reuters News Agency.

(Poetic Justice?)

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