Hello, I'm growing three garlic plants in a container on my balcony. I just noticed while watering them that one of the plants had a bunch of tiny, orange dots on its leaves and there were several tiny insects crawling around on the surface of the soil. I attached a picture of the dots. I cut off all the leaves down to the stem to get rid as many of the orange dots as possible but there were some down so far on the base of the leaves that to get rid of them I would have to cut off the top part of the stem as well. I'm wondering if I should remove the plant from the container altogether in order to save the other two plants, if it's not too late. I've searched the books on garlic that I have at home as well as the Internet and haven't been able to figure out what affected my garlic. Has anyone experienced this problem before and knows what to do about it?
This is Garlic Rust (Puccinia allii), a fungal disease that affects my garlic, onions, and leeks. I just recently discovered that this disease, not Downy Mildew, is affecting my Alliums, which explains why spraying with copper has not been effective. Web sources suggest a number of fungicides that I don't have, as well as sulfur and lime-sulfur, which I am about to try when we get a break from the rain showers.
