In article ,
Drakanthus wrote:
I just went out to cut some chives to put on my baked potatoes and was
disappointed to see the plant is covered in what looks like rust. Is there
anything I can or should do, or is the plant a lost cause for this year?
It's flowering beautifully, though, so at least it still looks pretty!

WD40 ? ;-)

Nice one! I wonder how that would work? You can spray with a generic
fungicide, though I would use a simple copper-based one on plants that
I am going to eat, or simply ignore the rust. It fairly rarely kills
native plants - well, obviously, or they wouldn't be native - and as
far as I know it isn't poisonous to humans.

I wouldn't eat badly rusted chives, though, in case it does have a
nasty mycotoxin - and some are VERY nasty. So you may have lost the
crop until later in the year, but the plants should recover.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.