Last week it was time for my second planting of onion sets up on Plot 29. My first ever planting of onions took place last October, before that I wasn’t really prepared to give space to crops that would occupy it for 24 odd weeks. But with our garden being almost ready for growing all the faster maturing vegetables, I’m happy to let slow-growing vegetables take over at the allotment.
I didn’t do much research in term of what variety to choose but quite simply went for Onion ‘Stuttgarter’ because I can call my self just that. No, not an onion but indeed a Stuttgarter as that’s where I spent the first 21 years of my life. Hopefully these little sets will put down their roots just as happily as I have here in South Devon. I can’t remember which variety I planted in October only that it was one more tolerant to over wintering. It has done just that and seems to be doing well.
Onions have been around for so long that it isn’t exactly known which wild Allium they derive from. It is indeed an ancient vegetable and can be dated back as far as 3500 BC when it was cultivated by the Egyptians. The odorous onion was commonly grown in medieval times and many of our modern varieties have been developed from their ancestors.
I planted mine in rows about 25 cm apart in shallow drills which I filled with vegetable growing compost as the soil on my allotment is anything but free draining. I gently mixed the compost with the existing soil by forking it over with a hand fork. I then pushed the sets into the compost leaving the growing tip showing, spacing them about a hands width apart.
Hopefully this Stuttgarter will get to harvest some onions to created a lovely onion plait sometime in August.
Why not try inter-cropping your onions with something quick to crop like radishes, have you grown anything between your rows of onions?
