Onions! (Longish post, LOTS of questions!)

[emilykf]

Hello everyone, we've had a fun first year of growing our own, and have been fairly successful with strawberries, runner beans, potatoes (Vivaldi, Charlotte, Red Duke of York) & leeks. We've just harvested our onions (1.01kg of white & 1.142kg of red) - and have a few questions! We have them lying on some matting in the back room to dry out and aren't quite sure how long to leave them for? We also had a problem whilst we were away on holiday, when we got back we found that the tops (which had just started to go yellow and fall over) had been decimated, we're not sure if it was birds or some other pest, but they just seemed to have on the whole disappeared. We weren't sure whether that would cause a problem so left them, and they did grow a bit bigger but not much. We've ended up with a handful of 'normal' size onions, and quite a lot of golf ball size ones - could this be due to the tops being eaten or is this usual for first time growers? Also, a couple seem to have sprouted new green shoots from the top so we've left them in the ground, is this the right thing to do or should we harvest them now?

We're planning on overwintering more onions, and some garlic, and obviously have a big area of the veggie patch where the onions have come from, are we ok to replant onions there or should we rotate?

We're already planning what to grow next year, we've decided on Scarlet Emporer runner beans, Tengergreen sprouting broccoli, January King savoy cabbage, Ingrid peppers, Supremo F1 courgettes, Winter Atlanta leeks, an Italian selection of cut & come again salad leaves, button mushrooms, Hytech F1 white onions, Cobham Improved Marrow parsnips, Cobnut F1 butternut squash, Cumulus F1 tomatoes, and 3, maybe 4 varieties of potato. Any tips, recommendations, warnings etc would be greatly appreciated before we buy our seeds. We'd definitely appreciate advice on potato varieties, we were slightly disapointed in the size/yield of our crop this year but couldn't fault the taste - never going back to supermarket potatoes!!!

Many thanks, and sorry for all the questions!

[T8Ter]

Hi Emily, onions should be grown in the same bed each year to build up fertility, the link below has good advice for preparation etc.

http://www.exhibition-seed.info/cultivation.htm

[Snadger]

Any crop can be grown year after year in the same ground (Monoculture)..............but generally it's not recommended!

Robinsons Mammoth onions are really for the showman as they grow huge! They take up a lot of land being spaced 18 inches apart to allow them to get to a geat size. Must admit, I find them tasteless specimens but thats a personnal viewpoint.

Dissimilar is my word of the moment. I always plant a dissimilar crop as soon as another dissimilar crop vacates the ground.

I practice TRUE crop rotation not ANNUALl crop rotation..........there is a difference.

My vote is not to follow like with like! ie plant your onions somewhere else!

PS A longish post deserves a long reply!!!!!!!!!!

[Jillyreeves]

I wouldnt plant them in the same place as your previous onions, for a couple of reason, to discourage the possible build up of disease and pests its not good practice to follow like with like and this and secondly if they didnt do particularly well for you in this place you may get better results by trying them somewhere different.

To improve crop yield keep your onions weed free, I made the mistake this year, my first year, of planting my onion bed too wide so it was almost impossible to weed the onions growing in the middle of the bed. The onions grown in the well weeded area at the edge of the bed were much larger than the ones in the middle that had struggled to compete to grow with the weeds. Lesson learnt :-)

[SarzWix]

I agree, unless you really can't rotate your crops, which is rare, it's not the best idea to grow things in the same place year after year. In a specially prepared and cared for bed, it might be possible to have a permanent onion bed, but you have to be scrupulous with hygiene, keep on top of pests, and extra vigilant for any sign of disease - all second nature to exhibition growers.

I don't think I've grown anything you have in your list of seeds, in fact I don't recognise a few of them so can't really comment if they're good or bad...

Potatoes, well, lots of us have a poor yield this year. So it may not necessarily be down to the varieties you chose. Last year and the year before, I had the best yield from Harlequin, an early maincrop salad potato, great flavour too

[zazen999]

Onions; the chaps at the mammoth onion place do grow in the same bed but remember:
a - they clean the soil with ***** fluid every year
b - they don't eat those onions, they show them!

If you want *****-fluid-tasting-onions....then that's the way to go.

Rotate your crops; either bed by bed or just don't follow like-with-like.

You know it makes sense.

The one thing I'd do with those seeds that you have selected, is to succession sow so that you don't get all the crop come at once. And see if anyone you know has other seeds, and swap a few with them so that you can have a go at other varieties.

[Twinsane]

Hi Emily (longish answer )

Well done on your successful first year. I'm not an expert by far but had the same issues as you with my onions. The size, I was told, was due to spacing them close together which I'd done because they were in a raised bed and I thought I could reduce the planting distance.

Drying onions, it seems, usually takes 2-3 weeks according to this link . I just left ours until the outer layers felt papery.

I don't know if leaving the resprouting ones in the ground is right but I'd have done the same and I'd definitely rotate as is the general consensus on here so far.

I can't help with the seed selection either as I think it depends on where you are, what conditions you have, and what your personal tastes are etc. If you're on an allotment or have neighbours growing their own; perhaps you can ask what they've had success with. Otherwise, look for seeds swaps to get hold of just a few seeds (there is a great one here) or find reduced seeds and try a few varieties ones and see what you prefer. That's what I'm planning to do

Good luck.

[geoff]

Rotate crops if possible, most veg growing books will have schemes

I've always planted supermarket garlic and had no problems. A couple of weeks ago I asked the local proper greengrocer if he had any garlic bulbs that were too blemished, old or scruffy to sell. He gave me a large bagful of oddments, all for free; I work shifts, and plan on putting them in next week if the weather holds up. Most garlic needs to get cold or it will not form the cluster of small cloves ( several cloves = one bulb) so you should try to plant before the end of November

I've planted both seed potatoes, and "eating" potatoes, ie the ones that had gone too old and manky to eat while they were in the veg rack!
Haven't had any problems, but I have heard that some supermarket potatoe are treated to stop them growing
So, with potatoes, onions, and anything else, spread your risk - don't rely entirely on a single large planting of one variety; use a combination of new and tried varieties

This summer has been so wet that I had to lift the onions while they were damp. I removed the wet and soggy lraves and spread them out on plastic mesh racks in the garage, with air space around them. That was at the end of August, and so far they seem to be keeping

[emilykf]

Thanks everyone for the replies.

So it's looking like we won't be putting more onions in where they grew this year! We're lucky in the fact that although we don't have a massive garden, we both prefer growing fruits & veggies to plants/flowers, this year we had some in pots/troughs/containers on the patio and also a long raised bed down the side of the garden. We're starting preparing more land next to the bed that's already there so we've got plenty of space to grow/rotate.

Had a look at the seed swap on here and looks good, will definitely be contributing once we've got our seeds - just one (possibly silly!) question. If we want to split a packet of seeds what's the best way of sending them if we make a swap, just in a little envelope?

I think it's just going to be a case of trial and error for now, there's loads of invaluable advice on here, and we've also got friends & family who grow their own.

Thanks guys!

[smallblueplanet]

We pickle our small(er) onions and shallots. The others get strung up - I've posted the link on another post, but here's the instructions too.

stringing onions

[emilykf]

We pickle our small(er) onions and shallots. The others get strung up - I've posted the link on another post, but here's the instructions too.

stringing onions

Ooh, thanks for the tip - we'd already decided to do balsamic pickled shallots as a Christmas present for a couple of people, will be even better with our own onions.

[smallblueplanet]

Just be aware that your small onions pickled might be a bit 'stronger' than shop bought varieties.

None of my business but you're not growing many tomatoes? Why grow an f1 variety that doesn't 'sound' much different from a.n.other salad tom? Being an f1 if you did like it and wanted to save seed then it probably wouldn't grow the same the following year.

We grew Mayan Gold for mashed spuds this year and they were very tasty. 'Spud taste' seems very dependent on personal taste, weather, soil, etc more so than lots of veggies. We tend not to grow main crop spuds as we like to get the haulms off the spuds as early as possible so if they get blight it 1) can be contained & maybe kept off the toms and 2) doesn't get to the crop.

I like salad spuds and we also grew ratte and anya, bit disappointing but both tasty. Disappointing in that we had to dig them early because of blight. We are going to try charlottes again next year as we've liked them before, but who knows how they'll grow next year?!

Edit - oh meant to say we had something similar happen to the tops of some of our onions, think it might have been pigeons jumping up and down on them when fighting!

[emilykf]

None of my business but you're not growing many tomatoes? Why grow an f1 variety that doesn't 'sound' much different from a.n.other salad tom? Being an f1 if you did like it and wanted to save seed then it probably wouldn't grow the same the following year.

We're not actually big tomato eaters, OH doesn't really like them raw, but we make our own sauce with tomatoes, onions, garlic & herbs to freeze in batches for various recipes - and we'd like to be able to do it with all our own produce so we thought we'd grow some next year. We're very open to suggestions for what varieties would suit this though, to be honest with the toms we chose it was pretty much close our eyes & point!

[zazen999]

If it's for sauces, a good Plum such as a Roma Tomato would be one to start with.

I'd always avoid growing any fruit or veg without looking at recommendations which include 'good taste'....any that only say 'good value' - really should be avoided. If that's the best thing that they can say about it......

[chriscross1966]

I'd recommend Kelsae over Mammoth... it's pretty much as big (if not bigger) but at least it tastes ok .... plus big help in the kitchen if you're making a big pot of something... you only need to peel one onion....

chrisc