Allotments 4 All

In a raised bed - fresh bought-in compost - fine for the last month or so - NOW LOOK AT IT!!

If there was anything that could make me quit, this could well be it.

I empathise with you Tim.

Whatever it is ( leek, spring onion??), it looks very ill.

:'( :'( :'(

Debs

I knew I should have said - spring onions!

Don't give up Tim!!!!
How depressing though.

Looks as though a thorough soaking of the bed with Armillatox is called for - after you`ve lifted the rest of the crop, of course.

Tried it last yeat - exact to the book - double spray @1/100 - to no avail. Shame.

But if a fresh bed can get it, then even more likely an old, treated one??

Oh Tim, so sorry. Presume this is the awful white rot - not seen it before but read lots about it here.

Don't let it get you like that Tim. Think of all the success you've had.

Sorry to hear - best laid plans and all that!  ::)  I used fresh, bought compost this year, scrubbed every pot and still the blessed vine weevil and a million other pests. 

For some reason this year has been particularly bad. 

Kind of makes you wonder what's in the compost that we buy though.  Or how it is stored.

d**n & blast!

I had assumed we would be safe at this time of year after reading the HDRA fact sheet:

QuoteTemperature

White rot is temperature dependant. It is active only when the soil temperature is between 10º-20ºC (50º-68ºF). In the UK, this is usually in March/April. At this time overwintered crops, such as garlic, have a well-developed root system, extensive enough to stimulate the sclerotia into germination.

Reading it again though I cannot see why they concentrate on those two months only because I would have thought that the soil temperature would be around that for most of a British summer.

Bad luck Tim - hope it all works out in the long run.  The garlic was good.

Think of the stuff you've had success with. I know where you're coming from, I felt like that a short while ago, lost a load of plants through the drought. It is so devastating, I very nearly gave up but the stuff I've got in pots toms and sweetcorn are doing really well..I managed to keep those watered. Just hang on in there Tim.

Yes indeed - you're all so right. And after first getting my fingers into soil some 75years ago in Father's market garden, could I really chuck it?? It will always be a big part of my life. Especially since I gave up business last year!

It just goes so much against the grain to actually have to buy onions for the first time in 45 years!!

tim, I`m a bit confused at your reference to `a double spray` of Armillatox as being by the book.  Armillatox at 1/100 should be used as a soil drench at a minimum of 1 gallon per sq. yd, not as a spray, then left 6 weeks before planting or sowing

Tim, does white rot mean that the whole crop has to go?

Armillatox - " 5l/sqm @1/100 - dig over - leave 6 weeks & retreat?" (Re- treat!)

The Rot - much will be beyond recall but, obviously, save everything you can, disposing of the debris carefully. We now can't use any of our main beds for at least 9 years!! Or, sadly, put another way, not in our lifetime!!

My can seems to pre-date the introduction of the metric system, tim

Hi Tim,
           Sorry to hear about your plight with the dreaded disease. :(

The oldest form of purging the soil was by fire, the old worthies say that you should have bonfires all over the area where the white rot is present and basically cook the disease out of the soil.

I don't know whether your association permits bonfires or not, but if they do start collecting plenty of anything organic which will do the job. ;D

You must first dig the area where you are going to have the bonfire on so that the heat penetrates as deep as possible, then build the bonfire on top of that area.

It would seem logical that the temperature created by fire would kill anything under that area. ;)

I hope that this information may be of some help to you.

                                                           PREMTAL :)

Good thinking, but we are surrounded by neighbours!

Ok then Tim you have to plan your fires when they've gone out.  I have a neighbour next to my lotty so I don't have a barby at the weekend as they don't like it - although they have them.  They call mine a bonfire but there's is a barby.  Anyway I digress.  I have made my beds where I've had bonfires as it's a cheats way of clearing the ground ready for planting and I'm glad to hear that it's a good way of getting rid of disease.  Hope it works for you Tim so you don't have to buy onions. 

Yesterday was lotty barbecue day (not my lotty) and it was throwing it down but I went and picked red onions, four lovely cucumbers, beans and courgettes as could not bear thought of buying them from supermarket because it was really hammering it down.  I got drenched to the skin but it was worth it  :)
We had our barby out of the rain and not unfortunately on the plot as planned  :(

Really bad luck Tim!  Awful thing to see.  I don't often come on this section as I really don't want to know all that can go wrong, otherwise I would be lying in bed at night worrying about my lottie veggies.  Ignorance is bliss as far as I am concerned.  :) busy_lizzie 

Hi Tim,
           If you know someone who has one of the Green Dragon type flame weeders, the ones with the gas canister on a trolley and a hood at the business end that might solve your no fires problem. ;)

                                                          PREMTAL ;D

That's a thought! On the small scale of a raised bed, it might just work? With much turning over.

Sorry to hear about the white rot , Tim.  but I wonder if white rot clears itself up.  

Quite a few weeks ago, I started picking my onions and noticed that a lot appeared to have white rot, which I dug up and discarded in a pile near the compost.  I left the rest in the ground and hoped for the best.  This weekend I went to pick the remaining onions and only 2 or 3 had the white rot out of 100 or more - previously 1 in 3 had the rot.  So does the rot clear up - assuming the rot is only on the skin surface.  And if we see mould on the skin surface of anything do we assume it is the end of the plant.

Also, some of the previously discarded onions with the rot, didn't have any when I last looked, and looked perfectly edible.  Was this really white rot or some other mould on the skin surface.

Don't give up Tim, keep going, you will win in the end.

Regards Lily

I was going to suggest a monster flame gun. (not that I know anything, I'm a novice especially compared to you Tim).  I figured even if it didn't work you would somehow get a sadistic pleasure out of roasting the flippin' stuff.  Ha!

I think You made some small beds for your alums Tim.Try this on one of them....
Hit the bed with lime spread quite a bit on more then You would think of using normally ..Then  after a week or so rotovate it in ..Then just before you Plant or sow the bed next year give it same treatment with less lime ..I know it goes way out with the theorists as the Ph in  that bed   will be not what they would reccomend for alums. But onions can stand lime .
AND it worked for me  ... Cheers Jim...... 

THAT'S a new one, Jim!!

Lily - sadly NO! Not in 9 years. Hence my displeasure!

So clean all your tools & burn, or safely dispose of all debris.

9 years  :o    Gardening seems to get scarier and more pit-fall-ridden everytime I log on!! Fortunately I don't know what I'm actually doing out there, or I think I'd have to stop  ;D

Makes me glad I am not a farmer!  Losing crops like that on a small scale is bad enough.