Knowing your onions
My shed stinks.
It's become a drying room for dozens of onions that I've just brought home from the allotment. And I don't even like onions.
I think I planted them around March/April, having bought a bag of un-named 'sets' from the allotment shop. My onion-loving Bloke wants a good plait of onions to last him through the autumn.
If I can work out how to string them.
Sets are just tiny, immature, heat-treated onions which when planted swell and grow into proper onions.
The heat-treating means their flower embryos have been killed, so they are less likely to run to seed or bolt.
Generally, growing onions from sets is easier than from seed. However the range of varieties available is far greater if growing onions from seed.
If you want to grow from seed, do so in January or February.
Sow five or six seeds per module in damp seed compost – when planted out the clumps of bulbs will push themselves apart as they expand.
You need a sunny, well drained site for growing good crops of onion and garlic. It is possible to grow good onions on heavy soil, but they don't like it soggy.
Some people (so my allotment neighbours explained) plant them with their tops showing but on our plots the pigeons would have them, so I buried mine just below soil level.
A shoot appears very quickly and by summer the bulb is sticking out of the ground. You need to keep weeding around them – thankfully I left just enough space between each for a hoe – otherwise the weeds take over.
As soon as the leaves start to yellow and die back, onions and garlic are ready for picking.
I thought you could pick what you needed but again my experienced allotmenteers recommened getting them up in one go and leaving them in the sun to dry before storing.
If you leave in them they start to rot.
Of course, as soon as they were out of the ground it started to pour with rain.
I took my soggy hoard home and laid them on any available surface in the shed (bike seats, old toys, plant pots).
The fist lot I'd stashed last week are now quite dry, so it doesn't take long.
Those with thick necks should be used first as they rot more quickly.
Storage life depends on the cultivar but is usually three to six months.
Meanwhile back home in the garden, I've been picking some huge, super-tasty raspberries this year.
Apperently the wet weather at least means great fruit this year.
If I remember rightly, these are Autumn Bliss, planted two years ago. There are around five canes against a wall and they don't take up much space.
I'd heartily recommend them!
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Thursday 24 May 2012
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