Growing Past Garlic Rust
Garlic Rust has been devastating to many experienced hard core garlic growers. Here at Kōanga we lost our crops seriously the first year it hit, but we couldn’t just throw it out and buy more garlic, our cultivars were not replaceable.
If all the things I have been learning and teaching over the past 20 or so years were true then we should be able to sort the garlic rust.
My understanding from all I have learned studying Dr Carey Reams Book Nourishment Home Grown and working with Grant at EF for years , tells me that if the garlic has rust or any other disease it is a result of mineral imbalance or deficiency. Deficiency can be occurring if it is too wet, too dry, too hot or too cold.
If those things are sorted then continue on…

  • Garlic loves high levels of fungi
  • Fungi loves ramial wood chip
  • Available calcium is responsible for cell wall strength, and disease resistance, but must be in balance with magnesium .
  • For a plant to be high BRIX or nutrient dense and resistant to disease we need high levels of phosphate in balance with potash
  • Ramial woodchp contain balanced minerals to support healthy cell growth
  • Kōanga compost recipes in the following booklets show you how to make compost that will also give you balanced minerals to build your soil. Beginner Gardener, The Art of Making Great Compost, Growing Nutrient Dense Food.Our online Composting workshop takes you through the process as well as the GRowing Nutrient Dense Food online workshop

Basically there is no magic bullet, it is a journey towards growing nutrient dense food and building soil.. They go hand in hand. The reason so many of our Regen Ag consultants say ‘do not use compost’ is because most of us including me for many years) made compost with random ingredients and produced compost that did not achieve balanced or high levels of minerals, in fact usually make the mineral levels worse than before. It is absolutely key to find ways to be adding calcium and phosphate, and when we keep adding more and more plant material we keep making the imbalances and low levels worse and worse and harder and harder to fix.

We need to be following the principles of science/ laws of nature here and our recipes do that.
If you don’t want to or can’t make good compost for whatever reason then apply ramial woodchip now ( April May) to your garden beds and plant lupins or a carbon compost crop and leave your garlic planting until early September, by which time the fungi will be very active and take care of your garlic to a large extent.


Fish hydrolysate (calcium phosphate) is great for garlic as well as fresh liquid organic cow manure ( loads of microbes and some phosphate)


It’s all about 1 step at a time, but it must be 1 step in the right direction if we want to achieve success…
Principle based decisions are key … as in our online Growing Nutrient Dense Food Online Workshop