Japanese Onions out!
Sunday, June 21st, 2009
As the weather was relatively nice over the weekend, we took the opportunity to harvest the Japanese Senshyu Onions that have been growing since about October time. As usual, I bought too many, but the ones that did make it into the ground, have grown huge. I think they are much bigger than any onions planted in March have ever been. Must be something to do with the weather…
As the Mrs. showed how much of an expert she is at stringing onions last year, (http://vegmonkey.co.uk/how-to-string-onions/). I think she’s ‘really looking forward’ to getting stuck into it. We couldn’t find a decent explanation of how to do it online, so decided to write our own. I think it did the job as it got a lot of comments, but I don’t think it became the definitive weblink I wanted it to be!
Amyway, the onions, red and white, have been laid out on wire inside the old cold frame that we built from an old Argos wardrobe when we first moved into the new house. They should be happy drying in there until the stems start to die off and go brown – usually about 7 days, then we can string them. The difficulty with doing them straightaway is that the stems are too thick and if they are left too long, the stems tend to tear when they are tied, which isn’t ideal for stringing.
I’m quite pleased we’ve found a use for the cold frame, it has been pretty redundant of late, after the ’slug hotel’ inspectorate awarded it 5 ***** for comfort and warmth, I have been reluctant to put anything in it. It doesn’t get a huge amount of light either.
Potato update: It seems they were just ready. The picture above shows the bed I cleared. The bag they are in weighs about 25kg…that is under a quarter of what we will recieve in harvest. Innovative potato recipes anyone? I left two rows in as a bit of an experiment to see if the scab gets any worse after the plants fully die off, I predict it will.
