Bob Hobden wrote:
We have White Rot in our soil so we plant all our alliums 9 inches apart,
the theory being their roots won't touch so if one gets WR then it stays on
that one and does not travel along the row. Seems to work. Next door

I've been planning on doing hte "garlic solution watering" trick someone
suggested here a while back for getting rid of white rot. Once the whole
patch is strawberries, I guess it won't matter. I just keep forgetting
and accidentally replanting onions where I shouldn't. :-( (My crop
rotation plans go through the window when I get to "I have something I
need to plant, where can I fit it in" stage). The 'proper' onion bed
this year is on the other half-plot (We had a half plot, then we had 2
half plots, then we gave up the 2nd half and got a full, so now we have
the original half plus an extra full one), in a raised bed, which had,
erm ... something else in it last year. Oh dear, the brain has gone all
Monday morning. Not sprouts, they were in the new raised bed (which
wasn't raised until this year) which now has the carrot seed in it.
Could have been other-brassicas, cabbages probably. I keep on doing
brassicas despite being rubbish with them. :-/

allotment has lost all his garlic to WR, ours look Ok so far although rust
is a problem but that normally does not affect the crop. Forget growing
Spring Onions if you have WR.

Mine never seem to come up anyhow. I had a fresh new packet of seed (gasp!)
from a magazine, and I think we had 2 germinate in a row, and they have now
vanished.

One tip I heard of and we tried last year for the first time is to mash up
some clean alliums (garlic in our case) into a can of water, or two, and
water over the plot you will use for your onions next season. Do it a couple
of times during the season and the theory is it makes the fungus germinate
thinking there are alliums to infect when there aren't so it dies.

Ah, note to read whole post before replying! yes, that garlic watering
trick. :-) Hope it doesn't make the strawberries too garlicky