All things Allium - Leeks, onion, shallots etc

[pigletwillie]

Mine are all sown and are sat on the kitchen worktop. Six 4" pots in all, sat in two standard seed trays without drainage holes so they dont make a mess when watered.

The hative de niort shallots will be potted up in 3" pots this week but will be kept in the cold greenhouse. Slowly slowly with them. All I want is lots of root growth before they are planted out and very little top growth.

[zazen999]

Sown today:
Shallots
Zebrune
Banana

Onions
Mr Allen's Reliance [from Heligan]
Golden Bear F1
Redbeard
The Kelsae
Brunswick
Red Baron
Bedfordshire Champion
Spring - Elody

Leek
Blue de Solaise
Lyon 2 Prizemaker

A good pinch of seed in each cell of root trainers.

Watered from top with lukewarm water.

Left on the windowledge until large enough to pot on, then will go outdoors after hardening off.

[hawthorns]

ive sown

bedfordshire champion onion seed 3 to each module x8
musselburgh leek seed 3 to each module x20
prisma shallot seed 3 to each module x12

into compost topped off with vermiculite

placed into propagator

[ardroil]

ive sown
24 silverskin
12 ailsa craig
12 rijnsburger

in multi purpose compost
watered with warm water sprayed,
in trays with plastic lids
all in the greenhouse

its -5 deg outside
+8 in the greenhouse

[Snadger]

Just sown another two pots of alliums today.......Zebrune shallot (very hard to source) and Long Red Florence onions!

This makes my five alliums set up til now:-

Shallot Matador F1
Golden Bear onions (Whiterot resistant? We shall see!)
Kelsae onions
Zebrune Shallot
Long Red Florence onions

I tried all over to get the Zebrune Shallot seeds, only to find there seems to have been a national crop failure last year!
I finally found some on eBay where someone was luckily selling last years unopened seed which will still be viable until 2010! They cost me £2.80 a packet which is quite expensive for eBay. I can only assume I was bidding against others who had found the seed hard to get.

If anyone knows of any suppliers of this years Zebrune Shallot seed I would appreciate the name of supplier if found!

[zazen999]

Thanks for the info Snadger - I'll keep a few separate and let them go to seed now you've mentioned it.

[Snadger]

Thanks for the info Snadger - I'll keep a few separate and let them go to seed now you've mentioned it.

Just noticed you've sown Zebrune as well zazen..........have YOU used last years seed or have you managed to find a supplier for THIS years seed?

[zazen999]

Bought the seed, the make is Sutton's but have no idea where I bought it from from; methinks it be from a local nursery but I couldn't say for sure.

[smallblueplanet]

Sown today:

Onions
Mr Allen's Reliance [from Heligan]
...

Never heard of them zazen, what are they like?

Looking to get some 'different' onion seeds, I might try Owa or Walla walla.

[zazen999]

I have no idea! I found them at Heligan [and had to buy some seeds] but it said they were bought at the Nottingham Goose Fair originally, and are a white spanish onion. Me and the OH have an ongoing joke about the goose fair as i'd never heard of it before I met him, so I had to get them when I saw them.

[Alison]

My mum's school used to close every time the Goose Fair came along so she always claimed to be a big fan.

[zazen999]

If only the Goose Fair still sold seeds!

[Snadger]

Bought the seed, the make is Sutton's but have no idea where I bought it from from; methinks it be from a local nursery but I couldn't say for sure.

Mine is Suttons last years seed also!

Suttons Shallot Zebrune Seeds [SUTTO177901] at www.CapitalGardens.co.uk :::

[smallblueplanet]

I have no idea! I found them at Heligan...

It says this in Thomas Etty

Reliance, Autumn Queen
or Oakey. 1880.
“Selected by Mr Allen, Gardener to Lord Suffield
from seed of onions bought at the Nottingham Goose
Fair, & now brought up to the very highest type of
White Spanish.”

[zazen999]

That's them - both lots.