Onions in autumn

There’s nothing like ignorance to get you through, is there? And my ignorance when it comes to overwintering onions is … profound. So far I’ve managed to find out that:

Onion sets are planted with the point at the top and the roots at the bottom and with the pointy bit level with the soil. They need to go into either very well-tilled soil or, if they are going into clay or less well worked ground, you need to dig or dib a little hole for them as they can easily be damaged by being pushed into the ground.

Unlike other plants, the smaller sets can actually be more productive because the bigger they are the greater the likelihood of bolting.

Pigeons and starlings (and in our area, seagulls) all have the habit of pecking the tops off the growing sets or just pulling them out of the ground. This year, rather than netting them, I’m going to try covering them with that weird and wonderful Scaraweb that somebody gave me (looks like Father Christmas crashlanded on the allotment and left his beard behind) but if the pesky pigeons do strike, I shall immediately go for a netting tent approach instead.

And so tomorrow - in go the onions!

Labels: allotment-birds, allotment-onions, allotment-overwintering-onions

Allotment plans for winter

What happens when you have great ideas and very little information? You guess. Duncan mentioned that he wants to grown onions and garlic over the winter. Sounds good to me! But …

Have you ever tried to find out the real nitty-gritty on overwintering onions? No, I didn’t think so. Because nitty-gritty there is not much of!

Here’s what I’ve found out:

• You can plant onion seed in the autumn for overwintering
• There is a risk of bolting
• You need to protect it with fleece through the winter
• There’s a Blue Peter style way of sowing onion seed with strips of newspaper and glue that looks like so much fun it should be legislated against
• Garlic needs cold to germinate (really? I planted mine late in May and it’s germinated just fine – perhaps I’m lucky?)

The Royal Horticultural Society came up trumps with facts, but not with details – to whit: Onions are biennial, grown from seed they produce foliage in their first season, overwinter as a bulb, and then flower and die the following year. It is the cold winter temperatures that initiate flowering, and problems can occur when fluctuating temperatures trick the plant into thinking that it has experienced a winter chill when this is not the case. Onions only become receptive to winter chilling once they are a certain size. Consequently careful manipulation of sowing and planting dates lessens bolting. For example, by sowing seeds of overwintering onions in August resulting plants are large enough to survive winter cold, but small enough to be insensitive to chilling.

Ah ha – but …

• Which varieties?
• Will simple fleece cloches work as protection?
• How close can the rows be?
• Do they need winter watering?

Well, I think we’re going to find out – I’m ordering the seeds this week … watch this space (or rather, peer under this cloche) for future developments!

Labels: allotment-garlic, allotment-overwintering-onions, allotment-winter-crops