Rust on garlic leaves and onions

Dear fellow DGers,

This is the first year I have grown veggies in raised beds we built last fall.
We bought soil with amendments to fill the boxes.

Soon after the rains had started, we noticed these teensy little orange mushroomy growths on the surface.

I looked it up, and it said that was some harmless fungus.

As soon as the garlic leaves and onions were big, they started to get orange powder all over, and when we pulled them out, nothing had happened beneath the soil, they were still as small as when we planted them at Thanksgiving.

What can I do to prevent this from happening again, do I treat it? I fear the spores might be dormant until the same crop shows up.

The tomatoes and potatoes aren't looking too happy either.

Please advise?
PS, the picture shows some onions that aren't too bad, the leaves are rusty though.
Thank you, Christie

Sounds like onion rust Puccinia alii. We had it in the UK. It affects most alliums - garlic, leeks, ornamental alliums. Don't grow any of these in the same area for at least a year, as it over winters (at least in UK climate). If you're not a dedicated organic gardener you can spray with a fungicide.

mrs-colla - I don't know abou the "rust" but I think you pulled the garlic too soon. It takes about nine months to be "ready" - if you set your cloves last November, they should be pulled in August. At least wait until the tops have died and dried-up.

Honey, I pulled them because the leaves were so horribly rusty, completely covered in orange powder, and it was blowing all over with those ridiculous winds we had here recently.
My husband has been growing garlic for 20 years, but he has never had rust before.

Pat, we don't have freezes here, not enough to make a difference anyhow.
Which fungicide should I buy? And why isn't it allowed in organic gardening? How else could we get rid of it?

Thanks, Christie

Christie, unless your garden is certified "Organic" you can use whatever you like in it. I garden "organically" but am not opposed to using "other methods" when I feel it's absolutely necessary.

For instance, when I set seeds indoors, I use chemical fertilizers to bring them to transplanting size because I find it more successful against "damping off" which is a fungus.

Outside, when there are hundreds of slugs eating my food, I use Sluggo+ to kill them.

If you are comfortable with using a fungicide to kill the rust on your garlic, go ahead. Just be mindful that whatever you put on your crops or in your soil will, in one way or another, end up on your plate.

wheat crops rust too, lives in soil, increases with wet weather, hard to control, to get rid of