Onions

[Odsox]

I'm very pleased that my over wintering onion growing seems to have paid off.
I've never grown autumn sown onions before, mainly because of getting the timing right, sow too early and they will bolt, sow too late and you get small onions.
These are Senshu Yellow and were sown on the 1st of September and are very nearly ready, certainly ready enough to use right away.
They won't keep long, but then they don't have to, just to keep me going until the maincrop ones are harvested in late July.
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Onions.jpg (285.97 KiB) Viewed 25894 times

These are those maincrop that will take over later ... (and one carrot that wants to be an onion when it grows up)
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[Green Aura]

Do you think it'll taste oniony (in a carroty kinda way)?

[Odsox]

Do you think it'll taste oniony (in a carroty kinda way)?

I'll let you know.

It has just occurred to me that Flo and myself are probably the only active members actually growing vegetables now, unlike a few years back when I joined. Times change I suppose.

[Green Aura]

Well we are growing toms and cucumbers - albeit on the windowsills. We have fruit setting on our newly re-potted trees and herbs growing nicely on the decking.

The plan is to fence off one end of our very windy garden, to give some more protection and build some raised beds there - probably our final attempt at growing veg outside though as nothing else has really worked satisfactorily.

[Flo]

Good grief - a dearth of growers, where is the ish mindset! Mind I wish my veg would get their act together and catch up with the season. They are growing and I'm still waiting. 'twas the snow at Easter what stopped things.

[MKG]

Oh no he isn't!
I may now be restricted in activity, but I still grow a lot of rhubarb, the overwintered garlic was a triumph, the chillis are growing nicely and a host of pot herbs are beavering away like good 'uns. Oh - and the runner beans are about to be inserted into the very tall tubs just outside the kitchen door. That's it for this year, but I'm spending the summer planning next year's assault on non-bend gardening. At the moment, I'm researching vine potatoes and tree salad.

[Cassiepod]

I'm growing too! but with the weather my stuff is far behind others'... I won't be self sufficient but at least I'll have treats directs from the garden. hoping to put in a strawberry bed this weekend, late I know but better late than never.

[Weedo]

I'm trying! still time poor but onions are in (red odourless, white spanish, brown globe) along with first batch of leeks. Seed for later varieties was sown in trays yesterday. Some winter brassicas in - more soon. All summer veg has finished with the last of the dwarf beans frosted off last week.

[ina]

It has just occurred to me that Flo and myself are probably the only active members actually growing vegetables now, unlike a few years back when I joined. Times change I suppose.

Oy, oy - i grow quite a bit, too!

And since I tend to plant stuff out too late, I have a lot of overwintering veg... Albeit involuntarily. At the moment: beetroot leaves (last years'), perpetual spinach (last years'); the usual herbs (a friend of mine uses a lot of my lovage for a kind of pesto dip - very nice!); rhubarb etc. Broad beans, runner beans, peas, onions, lettuce, all coming on nicely. And more waiting for me to get round to planting out (petty pan squash, courgettes...) when I get round to it!

Have to try overwintering sown onions. I've had autumn planted sets before.

[Odsox]

OK OK, so there are 6 of us then, but we are fairly well scattered.

It's still an odd year, temperatures here have been mid 20's by day and mid 10's overnight for a few weeks and still a lot of things are well behind. I thought plants were supposed to catch up, but perhaps nobody told them.

[Weedo]

Look on the bright side Odsox - 6 growers in four different countries offer a lot of opportunity for ideas

[Flo]

It's still an odd year, temperatures here have been mid 20's by day and mid 10's overnight for a few weeks and still a lot of things are well behind. I thought plants were supposed to catch up, but perhaps nobody told them.

Listen I have a whole literary of things I have done wrong never mind things not catching up.
1. Put the pattypan, courgettes and sweetcorn in too early then baked them beyond recovery too early on - should know better than that as I managed to grow all of them over the last few years but these were never going to catch up so too early is not good
2. Managed to get a show of tomato seedlings but they stuck and never developed - moral of the story is that we've decided to buy in from now on so that we can have a variety of types in the greenhouse which will only take 7 plants at the most and daughter likes cherry tomatoes anyway which I've not done over the last couple of years with the greenhouse. Seed merchants don't go packets of mixed tomato seeds like they do lettuce.
3. We only need 2/3 sweet peppers and 2/3 chilli plants so why start off half a packet of each - space again
4. Next door neighbour started out some lemon crystal cucumbers which were one of the few things that germinated really well for him but mine are shooting away in my greenhouse. We think he's got a bad batch of grow bags.

[Odsox]

Seed merchants don't go packets of mixed tomato seeds like they do lettuce.

This one does and they sent me a free packet with my order. To me it's totally useless as I need to know what I'm growing, with a mixture you don't know how tall, what type of fruit or whether it's a bush or cordon.
https://www.plant-world-seeds.com/store ... _item/1712
But I can see your point and buying plants is eminently sensible. Can't do that here as garden centres are few and far between and none stock tomato plants, and if they did it would probably be Moneymaker.

My squash and sweetcorn are also the ones that are misbehaving. Some of the squash are now starting to get away, but some are still the size they were when I planted them several weeks ago, and the sweetcorn is only about a foot tall when it should be about 3 feet tall by now.
Ah well, I suppose it will eventually get going, but the solstice is only 20 days away and then it's all downhill back to winter

[Flo]

You can take your choice of what is misbehaving on allotments round here. Different things for different people.

[happyhippy]

I grow too! Atm,I have Celeriac,Fennel,tomatoes,cucumbers,beans,peas,flower sprouts,kohl rabi,onions,leeks,corn,kale,salad leaves,beetroot,and a variety of herbs.
Onions!I plant sets,and each year alot of them form seed heads way before the onions are big enough.I read that to combat this,you can cut that stem off,which will force the bulb to still grow,I've done this now,and hope it works.Any idea's why my onions keep going this way?