I posted a while ago that a lot of out Spring sown onion sets were bolting. It turned out that only a handful went to seed. The rest have happily filled out so much that 80% or so are ready to harvest. I’m going to leave them for a week or so, then pull them up. The plan is to fill the space with carrots - if all goes to plan, the ground will have served us twice in one season, and we’ll be eating some nice Christmas carrots! Either way, i can’t wait to start eating them, particularly the delicious looking red ones…it’ll be a while though as we have loads. I am going to make a point of learning how to plait them correctly this year, rather than just hanging them up individually in the shed, a la last year.
This theory of using the ground twice in a year is a bit of a ‘Mantra’ for us here at Vegmonkey and the Mrs. We have already grown a crop of early potatoes and Japanese ‘Senshyu’ Onions in the bed closest to the house, and it now has sweetcorn and courgettes growing well…and it’s only mid July. Also, as i posted yesterday, the second lot of cauliflowers have gone into the space the first lot came out of.
They key i think is having the foresight to plant the seeds and have things ready to fill the space. I’ve ended up with an excess of tomato plants and a spare courgette, which is never bad!
Tags: harvesting onions, onions bolting, successional planting
July 12th, 2008 at 6:47 pm
The onions are looking great. I’m hoping to try them next year.
July 12th, 2008 at 6:47 pm
Beautiful! I know what you mean about finding ways to re-use your space. It’s always nice to squeeze as many vegetables as you can out of a plot–kind of like those 1970s contests to see how many people could cram themselves into a VW Beetle, except that veg gardeners apply that same principle to carrots and squash.
July 16th, 2008 at 4:17 pm
Too true Meg, particularly in raised beds where the veg roots have more room to wander. I so need an allotment!
July 25th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
Great blog, Vegmonkey! In fact you’ve inspired me to move some of my old blog entries to a new dedicated gardening blog, so I can post my photos and shame myself into working harder on my allotment
I’m with you on the filling all the space all year round (at least in theory - I don’t always succeed!). After a couple of years of trying to grow veg directly in my garden soil I splashed out on a couple of raised beds, and the improvement in growth has been impressive.
July 26th, 2008 at 2:23 pm
Thanks! I love to hear that! I’l have a proper look at yours when i get a sec, but i think i’ll be adding a link to it on mine! Raised beds really do make such a difference, and i think the key to growing successionally is thinking about 3-4 weeks ahead…not easy when you are busy. Maybe experimentation is the key!!
July 27th, 2008 at 6:44 am
Cheers! I’ll have to add some permanent links to my homepage, when I’ve finished experimenting with the template (I didn’t rip off your design on purpose, BTW - I just grabbed the most gardening-looking theme from the Moveable Type gallery, and it turned out to have the same background!). BTW, you need to fix the ‘Home’ link in your code - it should be / not . otherwise it doesn’t work from most pages (I program websites for a living, so I tend to notice these things
).