Onions 2018

[Earthgirl Jen]

How are you treating the ground and when?
Is it effective as I am sick of losing garlic?

SalfordWhite I started a thread a while back about stringing onions, it's on page 2 of the vegging out forum there is an interesting link Martin H posted (post number 21)

It's all to do with confusing the rot spores into thinking you still have onions/garlic growing and you do it straight away or as soon as the ground is warm enough to (wake up) the spores.

I also found old posts on other forums where allotment holders always grow their onions on the same piece of land ever year because they follow the feed the spores with garlic powder/ garlic water principal and get good harvests.

I'm convinced enough that it helps.

Hope this makes sense x

[Earthgirl Jen]

I'm excited about my onions this year. I grew sturon from sets and red baron from heat-treated sets and haven't lost a single one to bolting. When I saw onions on other plots starting to bolt, I gave them a good soak weekly until the longest day. About half have fallen over now, so as soon as I dig out the drying rack (and old nursery fireguard which has rather unfortunately been claimed by some huge tagetes and nasturtiums) I'll lift them. Some of the Sturon are bigger than any onion I've ever grown. Fingers crossed I don't discover something nasty when they come up...

I hope they are a really good harvest for you 1Bee...
Have a wiggle of the onions while they are still in the ground. If the onions don't 'rock' and are very firm then you are in a for aFAB harvest.
If they 'wobble' easily then the chances are they will pull out of the ground easily as the roots are rotting and therefore there is nothing left to anchor the plant in the ground.

The easily 'rocking' of the roots on my Bedfordshire Champion are what alerted me to the fact I had a problem. Thankfully I caught it early and about a third of them were affected, not a problem as long as they are eaten or stored quick. We had a really wet humid weekend forecast so I took the decision to pull the rest of mine. Thankful that I did x