Hi, I'm relatively new to gardening so apologies in advance if my posts don't make a great deal of sense.
The summer before last I noticed my mint patch had developed yellow and black spots. I found out that this was rust, so I destroyed all the plants as instructed.
Last summer, I planted a rosemary in place of the mint patch, and within a couple of weeks that too became covered in the same yellow spots as the mint. I dug it up and destroyed that too.
Not knowing what to do, I left that patch of garden clear this year. We had some house guests staying with us recently who bought us a present of some raspberry plants. They were ordered online and have not yet arrived.
There is only one space in my garden where I can plant them and it's where the mint and rosemary both became covered in rust and had to be destroyed.
My question is this, how do I clean (for want of a better word) the soil so that I can plant the raspberry's without them becoming infected with rust, but without using a chemical that is likely to result in making the raspberry's inedible / risk poisoning my children next summer?
Do I have to dig up and discard as much of the soil as possible and replace it with soil from the garden centre or is there some sort of safe pesticide / fungicide that I can spray the existing soil with?
Any suggestions or ideas would be welcome.
Thanks!
