STOPPING THE ROT
When organic allotmenteers Jacci and Simon Gooding discovered their plot had developed onion white rot last summer, they set about finding a safe and natural remedy. Here, Jacci explains the results of their rot-eradicating experiment
When we took on the plot in 2015 we discovered we were home to a very healthy cinnabar moth colony – as well as frogs, hares, wrens, robins, blackbirds and various ladybirds, hoverflies, butterflies and bees. We take a free-range approach to our allotment and work symbiotically with all the nature on it such as letting borage flourish for the bees. So when we discovered we had onion rot we knew we had to find a safe and organic approach to dealing with it. I found an item from 2010 on the internet suggesting using garlic granules to trick the rot fungus into detecting onions had been planted, it would then bloom, find no host and die. It seemed such a safe and obvious idea that we just had to give it a go.