Look up onion white rot, Sclerotium cepivorum.

If that's the problem, it's really bad news. You won't be able to grow onions or garlic there again.

Uh-oh! I hope that's not it Tom. Good luck and let us know please.

jean001 it is definately not Sclerotium cepivorum.

peggy i was taking to rich, the organic farmer i bought our garlic from last year. he had a great year. i'm going to get some korean red from him. he was slicing some and eating it raw, the heat started to build, it go so bad (hot) he had to spit it out! also he talked about german red and how it's grown so extensively in new york. i'm going to try that too. good garlic harvest good tomato harvest.

tom

Tom, you are sooo lucky to have this guy (Rich). How many types of garlic did he grow this year? I saw your thread on growing garlic instead of potatoes and I agree. Besides, garlic is so much better for you than potatoes. My friends think I have so much garlic when they see my harvest but they don't understand, I have to plant the largest cloves back to get a good harvest next year. Still, I love sharing my garlic. This year I wanna plant no less than 300 cloves. With all that I'm using for canning this summer and giving away, I may have to re-up.

:)

I found this on the web about German Red;

German Red came to this country along with German immigrants a long time ago and I doubt if anyone knows where in Germany it originated. It is a generally a vigorous grower with large foliage that is dark green and results in a pretty good sized bulb. Being a Rocambole garlic, its flavor is very strong, hot and spicy and sticks around for a long time. It seems to have an especially rich taste. From a growers perspective, it grows well in cold winter areas and usually grows healthy fairly uniform sized bulbs. It has thin bulb wrappers that have a lot of purple and brown in them.

German Red usually has anywhere from 8 or 9 easy to peel cloves that are of good size, with no smaller inner cloves. The outer bulb wrappers are thin and flake off easily so it is not a very good storer, but no Rocambole is. For those up north who want to grow their own garlic it only takes a year or two to grow all you can eat. It harvests in mid-season along with most of the other Rocamboles. Bulbs are usually over 2 1/2 inches in diameter and are of good size are grown primarily for their particularly rich flavor.

Here is a link that might be useful: Source

Peggy,
I'm curious how exactly you can your garlic. If that is what you were referring to.

Tig911
I suspect you have a drying/hi-humidity problem.This year in Oly,Wa. area we had lots of rain/cool/hi-humidity in our traditional dry season (July 4th to mid Aug) much garlic was lost because it retained too much moisture for too long.I'm going to a controlled climate curing in a underused greenhouse(heat/humidity) temperature 65-75* day and night.I harvested 6,000 this year and planning on planting 12,000 this year.It doesn't take a very big percentage loss to make it expensive.Rotten garlic has no value and it hurts to have a 1/4 pound bulb go bad.

Rjinga,

Sorry, I just saw your question.

I don't can the garlic but I do can lots of sauces and soups with garlic in it.