My Winter Onions

On Friday I harvested my winter onions which I planted in late October 2005. They where planted as onion sets in unmanured ground before we started to have the bad frosts so they could get a good start to help then to stand up to the bad winter weather. They grew steadily over the autumn then in the middle of November and Early December we started to have the onset of winter with rain and night time frosts which finished most of the tender crops of like the caugettes and the runner beans. The winter onions stopped growing during the winter period and sat there waiting for the onset of spring and the warmer milder days. April arrived and the weather was getting warmer, the birds where singing and busy building the nests ready for there up and coming family of hungry chicks. The winter onions also had started to show signs of re-growth, so a good amount of fertilizer was added to the ground just before we had some rain so it would all get washed in and help to give the onions a good boost and to get them growing strong ready for a July harvest. The following months care consisted of basically weeding and watering on dry days. Then Friday 14th of July I harvested the winter onions and I was very pleased indeed with the results. The winter onion harvest was of a better quality and flavour that the previous summer 2005 crop. So this year I will be certainly putting winter onion sets on my shopping list ready for hopefully a good crop in summer 2007.

The_Snail