Onions Are In
Planted out this seasons onion sets the other day. I’m using Sturon again - they seemed fine last year. Decided to mark out the lines (bar one) with string …seemed to make sense when I planted them, but thinking about it today it’s not really needed.
Spring is certainly here now and it was warm enough for me to take my beenie hat off:
Need to get cracking now with other stuff and more weeding!
More Weeding
I’m happy enough with what I call the back square - I’ve dug loads of couch grass and ground elder out!
I’ll be plonking my onion sets in very soon. I’ve ordered more this year - last years crop lasted until about November I think. We seem to get through loads of onions at home so a bigger harvest this year can’t do any harm!
Fruits Of The Season
Well, it’s been pouring down at plot 69 (as well as everywhere else of course)!
Contents of the fruit cage is wild. Raspberries, tayberries (or are they logan berries?) all doing very well and we’ve picked quite a few too. As you can see from this photo (just!) the red currants have been ready for picking, so we’ve had some of them too - my two young daughters had great fun. Gooseberry bush has gone mad and will need a damn good prune at the appropriate time.
Elsewhere on the plot, the potatoes need digging up as the foliage is now dying off. In fact, I bumped into plot 60 owner Jenny this afternoon and she mentioned that George said that potatoe blight could be a problem.
Suspect my onions need to come out now too I reckon, well guess to be honest. I’ve got no idea yet about you plant in the ground where the potatoe and onions have resided for several weeks?
Stuff in the greenhouse is growing well and several tomatoes are now showing. Something is attracted to the cucumber plants, a black tiny aphid or something - not sure if this is a problem, plants still growing well?
Back outside, either my water butt at the front of the greenhouse is leaking, vandals are messing about or someone is helping themselves. I’m guessing it’s kids messing about.
Onions v Weeds
Shock. Horror!
It’s been raining (a bit). Must be the first time in ages. According to neighbours Lesley & George it hasn’t rained since the big storms back in January. Not sure myself, but it has been really ages. Anyway, as I was very keen to actually do something so I put my wellies and waterproof on and walked down to the plot.
I took some newly acquired old timber with me. I intend to make raise beds on the plot ‘cos they look neater and make crop rotation (yeah, like I know what I’m talking about!) far easier. The newly acquired timber has been acquired from a few sources. Like skips for instance - I’ve become obsessed with nosing in skips to see what there is …nabbed a good pallet last week from a skip on the main road. I’ve also started to use the Wirral group of freecycle.org - a great site where everything is free. Stuff like tellies, PC’s, furniture is being offered! I emailed this bloke from Rock Ferry who was offering some old glass and double glazing sealed units that he didn’t want. I’ve taken them for making cold frames with. It’ll be ace if someone offers a shed! I need me shed on plot 69.
Anyway - the onions and the weeds…. had a good go at the weeds in and amongst the onions. Think I really need to go over the rows again and get even more weed up. I now read that ‘cos onions don’t produce much in the way of leaves the weeds have more chance to grow ‘cos there isn’t much to cramp their style. Whilst reading up on how to grow onions I come across this page from the rhs that has a good onion growing video (fw the boring bits). Now why doesn’t my soil look like that??
Actually that video has given me an idea. I could record a video or two of some plot action and host it youtube and then embed it here at growing my own. A bit of an experiment if nothing else.
An hour or so soon passed. On the walk back I stopped to chat to Lesley & George. Bloody hell their plots (3) are completely weed free and immaculate. Good tip from Lesley …as carrots are so tricky to grow on our site ‘cos of the dreaded carrot fly, just grow them in the greenhouse from January and pull up when you’re ready for your tomatoes. Georges’ onion tops look bigger than mine, but then size isn’t everything is it?
Looking forward to getting some beetroot, parsnip and other seed in this week. Need to get my main potatoes ordered too. Maris Pipers. That’s what we have for our roasts and jolly tasty they are too.
Attack Of The Weeds
What with one thing and another I just haven’t had chance to get down to plot 69 since last Wednesday. As the photo shows the (presumed) chickweed has enjoyed the recently, unseasonally warm and sunny weather. The onions appear to be growing but the 6 broadbean plants that Dave gave me don’t seem to fairing so well (sorry Dave!).
Rose (the person) paid me a by-chance visit this afternoon and also thought that the weed is chickweed and she suggested that I simply hoe the weed out - so that’s an important job for over the weekend. Need to get some seeds in too! Sometimes I fret that I’m not ready and veg isn’t yet planted - but when I visit the plot and spy on my neighbours I feel (slightly) re-assured. It doesn’t help that my left-hand neighbours, Frank and Dave, manage their triple plot with army like precision - well, that’s how it seems through my novice eyes.
Over in the fruit cage the red currant bush and the raspberry canes appear to be doing well. If they and other bushes give fruit then we’ll be picking lots of it.
Looking forward to the weekends weeding and planting session already. Also looking forward to taking a few more snaps of more veg (seeds) being planted - it’ll be an education in pictures for our 2 young girls as the seeds turn into veg that they can eat. Actually, I’m toying with idea of setting up another flickr account, along the lines of this one that I’ve just setup for my to-be developed site about Hoylake. I’ll see how the time goes.
What Weed Is This?
Lovely day down on the plot yesterday - really warm.
Where my onions are growing I’ve got a decent covering of weed but I’m not sure what it is. Chickweed maybe? Think it is but I’m not sure. Bloomin’ pain anyway. Hey-ho !
Had a chat with Eddie, my neighbour over the back. He was saying that I missed out on a shed that was going free. Now that would have been really handy - I need my own shed but I’m hoping to get one on the cheap.
Bought a few packets of seeds the other day in Tescos - will post about them in the next day or so. Need to get them planted!
Spuds Are In!
Spent an enjoyable couple of hours down on the plot this sunny afternoon planting my first attempt at potatoes. Second earlies I think they are - so they’ll be ready in the summer.
I just about managed to fill the section behind the fruit cage - a portion of which has been taken over by the rampant raspberry bush. Need to do something with this at the end of the growing season.
I made some wooden spaces yesterday (with the help of my 6 year old daughter) and I used the 12 inch and 6 inch today. Potatoes went in 6 inches deep, 12 inches apart. Each row 18 inches apart. I’d been chitting the potatoes at home in the garage, though they’d only sprouted a little. Please grow!
The idea for the spacers came from watching a recent telly programme where a blind allotmenteer used wooden spacers. He hung them up on the back of shed door. Like a good scout I’ve prepared… I’ve drilled holes in the spacers even though I haven’t yet got a shed door to hand them on.
Onions are coming on - slowly. A few more have sprouted. And a few more have been pulled up by the birds. Just stuck ‘em back in.
I’ve developed a bad habit …eyeing up the contents of skips. Happened to spot a decent wooden pallet this week, so I rescued it and barrowed it down to the plot. Need to crack on with my compost bins.
Met another neighbour today. Eddie manages the plot behind mine for about 5 years.
Also met Rose and Fil and managed to get a freebie plastic tray with lid that should make a useful propogator. And just as I was leaving Simon from next door turned up.
Well My Onions Are Growing
Well, since my last post about finally getting around to planting something, things are on the up - the onion sets are starting to sprout. Only just, but it’s great to see something growing. Actually, I’ve had quite a few of these small onion bulbs popping out of my light soil and I’ve simply been plonking them back into the soil. Broadbeans are doing okay I think?
My potatoes that I’m chitting have only sprouted a little whilst they’ve been sat in my garage. Plan to plant them in a week or so - looking forward to that.
On recent visits I’ve been digging up more of that bleedin’ couch grass. I had a fire a week or so ago to burn some of the dryer weeds and stuff but the couch grass is way too green to burn so I’ll keep on bagging it up and bringing it home to brown bin.
Spent an hour on the plot this afternoon and met my neighbours Simon and Sabina. We’ve not seen each other on our plot for weeks. They’ve made some progress too and have managed to get some stuff planted including some onions and some raspberry canes. Talking of which, my raspberry plant in the fruit cage is looking a tad wild and maybe I need to prune it some more - am I too late?
Getting a little concerned that I’ve not got seeds etc ready for sowing. Beetroot, carrot and the like can all start going in now and I’m not really geared up for it yet! Think I need to be getting a bit more organised.
Other thoughts: Need to get the glass back in the roof (at least) of the small greenhouse to catch some rainwater. Need to come up with a way of guttering my side of the main greenhouse to catch a lot of rain that is currently going to waste. Also want to create a flickr account to have all my plot 69 photos available to the world.
Enjoying it all a lot!
Finally Planted Something
After several weeks were each visit has simply been a weeding session I finally got around to planting something on Saturday (yesterday). I’d spoken to Dave at Friday nights AGM and he told me that he had a 1lb of onion sets left to sell and also a few kg of seed potatoes.
So on Saturday afternoon I met Dave and his wife Sally down at the site and bought myself the Sturon onions (for 80p) and about 6kg of seed potatoes for a fiver. Dave also kindly gave me 6 broadbean plants.
So I weeded again the back section of the plot and planted the broadbeans and all the onions. Should be alright for onions for a while if they grow well ! I planted them at about every 6 inches - I understand that planting them further apart gives rise to bigger onions.
Here are the broadbeans; obviously need to stick some canes in at some point.
Here are the Sturon onions, spaced at about 6 inch intervals. I’ve got quite a few rows, 5 I think. I pushed them into the soil with the tops just peeking out. I think that they should be ready to harvest around August.
I’m hoping to plant out the potatoes toward the end of the month, though I gather the traditional day is St Patricks day. Today, Sunday, I placed all of these seed potatoes in plastic trays so that they’ll start to sprout - chitting as it’s called. I’ve just put them in my garage where they’ll get light but not direct sunlight.
Also today I popped down to the plot to pick up the spuds that I’d forgotten to bring home yesterday. I did a bit of pruning on the big raspberry bush in the left of the fruit cage. Not quite sure what to prune really so I sort of tidied it up a bit and removed any branches that were heading off along the ground. Need some advice next season on how to prune it and train it properly.
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Seed Shopping
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