Chives or garlic planted under a fruit tree prevent apple scab.

Contested

There's no evidence that chives or garlic under an apple tree prevent scab, and no mechanism for it. Scab lives in last year's fallen leaves and infects in wet spring weather. Choose a scab-resistant variety, rake up and bin the dropped leaves, and you've done the things that actually work.

What is actually known

A widely repeated permaculture plant-team claim with no trial of the planting itself behind it (the trials found test a garlic spray) and no proposed mechanism for how an allium's roots or scent would reach a leaf fungus. Apple scab (Venturia inaequalis) overwinters in fallen leaves and infects in wet spring weather; it is managed by resistant cultivars, raking up and removing the leaf litter, and where needed spray timing. An allium ring at the trunk does none of those things. It is the same shape as the garlic-deters-borers claim Milpa already records as having no evidence.

The evidence

Evidence: no study has tested it directly, so nothing settles it either way.

When do I plant chives? ›

Cite this page

Milpa Gardens. "Chives or garlic planted under a fruit tree prevent apple scab." Evidence grade: Contested. https://milpa.garden/beliefs/chives-garlic/

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How we grade evidence

Well established: The rule names its mechanism and is settled, by sources a person has read and checked or by plain arithmetic and geometry.
Promising: The mechanism is named and the literature backs it. A few questions are still open.
A good hunch: Plausible by its mechanism, but field studies are thin, so treat it as a lean.
Contested: The evidence points both ways, or no study has tested it, so the planner does not enforce it.; Contested here means nothing we found supports it.
Refuted: The claim did not survive its sources. It is kept so the folklore can be answered.