Bob Hobden wrote:
White rot doesn't usually affect the whole crop unless you plant very close,
we plant all our alliums at 9 inches each way and a few get the disease but
those next to them don't so we just plant a few more than we will need to
cover the losses. Sure it wasn't downy mildew?

Oh, I don't know. Hang on, I'll just google for images ...
Nope, google images seems to back me up, the photos that claim to be
white rot on google do look like my onions and garlic last year. (Kind
of white fungal looking fluffy goo with black damaged bits)

I think about 80% of the crop was totally unusable, 50% of what was left
was rescuable to cook and freeze, and the last 10% has been stored (and
since then a few of those have rotted, so I must not have filtered them
out carefully enough even then!)

We got it last year, too, on a different patch, so I suspect the whole
allotment site has a problem with it, unfortunately. I don't think we
were the only ones to succumb to it.

Your choice of Garlic is not
what we would have chosen, Elephant isn't actually a garlic it's a leek
relative and we didn't find a use for it, and Solent White was a disaster

Ah, it wasn't really a 'choice' so much as what the Independent Offers
from Mr Fothergill was offering at the time I thought of it. ;-)

for us a few years ago, nearly as bad as Marco last year. We have planted
Thermidrome and Germidour both of which have proved excellent on our plot,
also planted Chesnok Red as a trial.

Last year Nick sourced all his overwintering onions and garlic carefully
- 3 different colours of onion and a bunch of different garlics, and
look what happened! And the same the year before. this time I think
he's given up, so it was just down to me and my whimful purchasing.

We also found it not worthwhile planting Broad Beans or onions to
overwinter, too many died and they don't crop much earlier than spring
planted anyway.

I think I may do what I 'accidentally' did last year with broad beans,
which is to plant a patch out, and the same amount in pots in the
greenhouse, then use the greenhouse ones to patch up the gaps in the
outdoor planting when 3/4 of them fail to thrive!

rot. All of which have to be grown from seed about May/June time.

Yeah, bit late for me there, unfortunaetly.