Quote:
Originally Posted by laserlight
... I have ordered more garlic. I will ignore the information in the article when I plant those and learn which method works best.
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Good plan. Use a fertilizer that contains micronutrients from the electrolytic series (copper, zinc, iron) and most of the disease problems will not be an issue. I think you're already doing this anyway.
Aliums are rarely bothered by pests except some varieties of grubs. Keeping your soil pH around 6.0 to 6.2 will mostly eliminate this problem. Of course you do not want to plant tuberous plants in hard clay soils -- nor would you plant any other food producing plant in that soil. Aliums will freely interbreed, and as a consequence do not rely on seed for reproduction of next years crop. Propagation by extra (or conserved) tubers (or saved fingers of garlic) usually works well. Alliums and most tubers are heavy feeders in comparison to leafy produce, etc. Start out with an acid-forming high nitrogen formula and about 3 months or by mid-summer -- which ever comes first, supplement with a high phosphate formula and plant hormones.