Onion planting

Along with potatoes, onions are my most important vegetable crop. Last autumn we abandoned our attempts to plant onions outdoors on our main allotment because the ground was waterlogged. In January I planted the onion sets instead in seed trays in the greenhouse with the expectation that they would be planted out on the allotment in early April. That target got knocked for six with the delayed end to the winter. Too many frosts hit us in the first half of April so the onions were planted out last week instead. Or rather, some of them were planted.

Plenty still remain in the greenhouse because we ran out of space on the raised bed we had decided to use for onion planting. This bed is normally used for the polytunnel but this time we have removed the polythene and netted it instead to keep the hens off it. Also in the greenhouse are garlic and shallots and in the shed is a bag of more onion sets. These will all go to Dad's allotment. I would have preferred to get them into the ground before now but the knock on effects of the late running winter are still with us.