What went wrong????

[Claire72]

last year, I planted onion sets inbetween my rows of carrots, they grew about 30cm tall, then they all kind of fell over, and disappeared!!!
I presumed either onion eating bugs had had them, or mice. My carrots carried on happily, despite the wet weather.
Today I was digging over that bed, and found quite a few onion sets
Some were mushy and obviously rotten, others were quite hard, and looked like I could just plant them again (but didn't, I put them on the compost pile.)
So what went wrong with them? Tested the ph, it was 7 today, the only thing I can think is it was too wet last year, I was also quite late putting them in.
I am hoping to use the same bed for my onions, spring onions, leeks and garlic this year, figure that as they spent less than a month in the bed and did very little there, it is ok to use the same bed again?
Any advice?????

[TEB]

Sorry dont know what was wrong with them but wouldn't recommend putting them on the compost.

[Claire72]

oops, why????

[Capsid]

Sounds more like a disease to me. Did the leaves get grey patches on them which turned purple? That's downy mildew and is more likely in wet seasons that we had last year.

Or did the leaves turn yellow and the onions themselves rotted with a creamy mush inside? That's onion rot and you shouldn't grow onions in that soil for 7-8 years to avoid a recurrence.

[TEB]

Because some diseases (Onion White rot for instance) have no cure and just a piece of contaminated dirt on your fork/trowel is enough to infect another area.

[Claire72]

Didn't notice any of those on my onions, but it could have been. Will have to rethink my planting, perhaps I will put the potatoes in there this year.....