I didn’t think the pic of the bolted onions did the crop justice, so here’s a better pic of what we got. This is so much earlier than last year.
I promise i won’t get too close, these really are pongy buggers when eaten raw!
To all regular readers, apologies for the lack of recent posts, it’s not that i’ve not wanted to, more that we’ve had Ofsted in work and that we haven’t had the internet at home due to B.T being COMPLETELY inept…but that’s a whole other story.
I took loads of pictures at the beginning of the week, but they are all pretty much out of date now as everything has grwon since then. I’m hoping we’ll have the net back up soon, when the pole is replaced, but i think i might be doing a post a day until i’ve caught up!
The onions in the front of the picture are Japanese Senshyu Onions which grow overwinter. We’d never grown these before, and as they were a bit of an experiment, didn’t know what to expect. In my opinion, ground with something growing in it is better than ground that is empty, even overwinter, so they went in. The growth has been quite erractic, so much so, that about 10 are beginning to bulb, but the rest are taking a while to catch up. This might be due to a differing amount of nutrients in the soil or lack of water, but i’m hoping it’s more to do with the size of the set initially planted, and the smaller ones will catch up. On the brightside, i suppose it means we won’t have a glut.
In the reverse of the picture…again another experiment! I planted one lot of onions sets, both reds and whites (the varieties escape me), then a second sowing of pretty much the same quantity about a month later. The idea was to check whether sowing a month later actually brings the onions to maturity any sooner. Both sowings are lookign healthy. If all goes to plan, we can slowly harvest the Japanese onions for the rest of the summer, and use the Spring planted ones over winter and into next year. They will store much better than the Japanese ones which need to be eaten pretty much straight after harvest.
Working on the basis that we eat 3 onions a week, we should have enough of a supply to keep us going all year.
How amazing would that be! To never have to buy an onion again? At least i know they haven’t been covered in pesticides.
Due to only having a small space, we have to be exact. Planning what we plant enables us to use the ground twice in one year.
‘Bed One’ housed the Root crops last year, namely carrots, parsnips, onions and leeks. They all grew well but were harvested by the end of the summer which left a bed full of empty ground.
To use up half of the space, we planted ‘Senshyu’ Japanese Onions that would grow overwinter. The idea was that by the time the bed is rotated (it will become the cucurbit bed), the onions will have been harvested and the courgettes, squashes etc will be planted.
To complicate matters further, we planted Ulster Sceptre in the other half of the bed, a first early type of potato that takes 10 weeks to mature from planting. Again, the thinking was that they would be harvested in time for the courgettes etc to go in.
We planted the potatoes back in mid-March, so by my reckoning, they will be ready for harvesting around the end of May (10 weeks). The Senshyu onions were planted in September and will be ready for harvesting mid-late June.
The courgettes and squash plants - not too many mind, due to the space - will have been raised in pots from the beginning of May, maybe end of April and will fill the space occupied previously by the onions and potatoes. That will give them a good 3 months in the ground which is plenty to produce a good harvest.
This way, that one bed will produce a decent size crop of onions, potatoes, courgettes and squash in the space of one year. Not bad for a 2 metre square space! I’d be interested to hear how other people use crop rotation to help produce regular crops of veg. This year i’m going to try growing sweetcorn within the cucurbit bed…if the soil allows!
