We're Back!
After an unexpectedly lengthy winter hibernation Luke Is Digging is back. Whilst it's felt quiet in the last few months, the sum total of events is quite large. Most importantly, the plot has grown. The 2 men who had the half-plot next to mine retired from crouch graph fighting and so it was offered to me. Being a foolish youth without a highly developed (enough) sense of fear at large patches of weed I leapt at it, and now have lots more room for vegetables.
There's also been a fruit explosion here. Stealing lovely jam from Grandparents isn't a complete preserve strategy, and I love English soft fruit, so I've been putting all in kinds of things. There are a few rhubarb plants - although I'm told they shouldn't be harvested in their first year. Maybe just one stalk. 2 black currant bushes are planted and 2 gooseberry bushes are ordered. There are some strawberries that I found amongst the chickweed of my extension that need to find a suitable home. Best of all though are the 24 (!?) raspberry canes now in 3 enticing rows. On reflection maybe 12 would have been more suitable, but raspberry jam is my favourite so I'm sure I'll cope. At worst I'm sure I can find people who'll take raspberry jam in exchange for other fruit/veg delights.
The autumn onions have grown, if sporadically. I should really have netted them until their roots could hold them firm against clouds of curious birds. I'm not really sure what to do with them now. There are about half as many as there should be, so it's using a lot of space for only a moderate amount of onion. At the risk of confusion I may plant the next batch of onions in the holes the birds have made, and trust that I can tell the difference. I have no idea if transplanting onions is possible or sensible. The garlic though is incredibly vigorous. Even the few that the birds moved have, with replanting, stormed ahead. They are now in proud dense rows. I'm looking forward greatly to braiding them.
Apologies for the lack of pictures, I'm at work at the moment and so don't have access to any shots of the extended plot. I'll be back soon though with a picture of this year's vastly overambitious allotment plan, and a list of the varieties I shall be trying. My tiny garden at home has started to show signs of life - a big improvement on the weed bed it was when we moved in - so some photographs of the flowering bulbs there might also be in order.
There's also been a fruit explosion here. Stealing lovely jam from Grandparents isn't a complete preserve strategy, and I love English soft fruit, so I've been putting all in kinds of things. There are a few rhubarb plants - although I'm told they shouldn't be harvested in their first year. Maybe just one stalk. 2 black currant bushes are planted and 2 gooseberry bushes are ordered. There are some strawberries that I found amongst the chickweed of my extension that need to find a suitable home. Best of all though are the 24 (!?) raspberry canes now in 3 enticing rows. On reflection maybe 12 would have been more suitable, but raspberry jam is my favourite so I'm sure I'll cope. At worst I'm sure I can find people who'll take raspberry jam in exchange for other fruit/veg delights.
The autumn onions have grown, if sporadically. I should really have netted them until their roots could hold them firm against clouds of curious birds. I'm not really sure what to do with them now. There are about half as many as there should be, so it's using a lot of space for only a moderate amount of onion. At the risk of confusion I may plant the next batch of onions in the holes the birds have made, and trust that I can tell the difference. I have no idea if transplanting onions is possible or sensible. The garlic though is incredibly vigorous. Even the few that the birds moved have, with replanting, stormed ahead. They are now in proud dense rows. I'm looking forward greatly to braiding them.
Apologies for the lack of pictures, I'm at work at the moment and so don't have access to any shots of the extended plot. I'll be back soon though with a picture of this year's vastly overambitious allotment plan, and a list of the varieties I shall be trying. My tiny garden at home has started to show signs of life - a big improvement on the weed bed it was when we moved in - so some photographs of the flowering bulbs there might also be in order.
posted by Luke Kelly at
08:23
1 Comments:
Welcome back!
There lots of onion diseases and so crop rotation is particularly important with them. I don't suggest planting next years onions in the same spot.
Onions normally tolerate transplanting pretty well. I suggest just transplanting some of them into some of the spaces made by the birds, so the total space used is brought back down to what it should be. Then you can use the freed space to plant something else.
I've become a fan of perennial onions recently. I made a post about them here:
http://www.root-cause.net/?p=12
Some of these I'm not growing anymore, but if you're interested in Egyptian, Amish and/or Fleener onions I can send you some topsets. The plants usually develop topsets after the summer solstice, so I could send some then. You don't have to pay anything for them.
Perennial onions are disease resistant, so can stay in the same ground or could be planted where your onions are now. They keep growing, and you can just cut off the green tops and eat them. After the solstice they develop more topsets which you can plant for more onions. Any time you want you can dig up the whole plant and eat the root, but then of course it's gone and not perennial anymore.
By
Patrick, At
28 January 2008 18:44
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