Onions 2022

[Mr Bones]

Interesting, Mr Bones. You don't multisow?

Not maincrop - although a few plants in twos by accident are left to grow on. Our spring onions are multi-sown but aren't ready to go out yet.

Should have mentioned about the photo - Mrs. B's just giving the plants a final firming before covering with fine net to protect initially from blackbirds and foxes (digging) and then the allium leaf miner.

[quanglewangle]

Our autumn started onions have started to grow again. We lost some in the gales, hence the gaps.
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[Snoop Puss]

Not maincrop - although a few plants in twos by accident are left to grow on. Our spring onions are multi-sown but aren't ready to go out yet.

Should have mentioned about the photo - Mrs. B's just giving the plants a final firming before covering with fine net to protect initially from blackbirds and foxes (digging) and then the allium leaf miner.

Thanks. Charles Dowding is a big multisower and I've started mine off, multisown in modules. Fingers crossed it works OK.

[Sweet savory]

Most of my multisown rijksburger were planted out yesterday and cloched. Run out of cloches and as low overnight temps predicted this week, will leave the rest until next week. Someone has promised to make me another cloche by then.
I didn’t cover them last year and all was well but that could have been luck or a bad season for the pest as have lost a few to allium leaf miner in previous years.

[bramble]

All my autumn sown onion setts are growing outdoors for the past 6 weeks.
I started them in individual pots and then planted them all out..Sturon Centurion and The Sutton.

[Snoop Puss]

My autumn planted seedlings are just starting to bulb up a bit. Nice to see them looking so perky after the winter.

[Sweet savory]

The rest of my rijksburger planted out. They do look a bit weedy but hoping they will bulk up soon given the warmer weather forecast.
The long red Florence are still at the blades of grass stage so I stuck them in 2s and 3s in pots and crossed my fingers.

[Mr Bones]

Picked the first of this years spring onions (White Lisbon)

[quanglewangle]

One of the sets we started in October is bolting. This only worth commenting on is because it happens so seldom.

[Mr Bones]

You're not on your own Q, we've had a couple of autumn sown onions bolt so far.

[Snoop Puss]

Sympathy likes there, guys.

I've decided not to plant out my late Valencian onions. These are the ones you get here that keep the longest in storage at the end of winter. But frankly, I don't much like them. They're very hard (hence the good storage) and not great for cooking with. So I've decided I'll grow loads more leeks instead. They can stay in the ground over winter, so there's no chance of them rotting in storage. And as well as overwintering onions, I'll grow more calçots, which will also stay in the ground and make nice sweet fresh onions in late winter early spring.

I'm not just being lazy, honest!

[quanglewangle]

Sympathy likes there, guys.

Kind of you but one bolt is under 2% loss.

Way up from our usual zero though.

[Ger-annie-um]

We've had quite a few of autumn planted onion sets bolt. Never happened before. Pinning hopes for storage on seed onions sown in early January

[quanglewangle]

I put it down to a long spell of dry weather this spring and maybe some clumsy hoeing - onions have very shallow roots.


We edge the spacing closer each year. I don't think this is detrimental so long as there is plenty of nutrients and water but makes them susceptible to any dry spells and needs more precision when hoeing.

[ameno]

We edge the spacing closer each year. I don't think this is detrimental so long as there is plenty of nutrients and water but makes them susceptible to any dry spells and needs more precision when hoeing.

You can go a lot closer than that.
I plant my onions at probably half that spacing, and still get some really big onions every year.