Grow Your Own...Onions
Monday, February 18, 2019
Onions are easy to grow from baby onions, which are called sets. While you can buy seeds, sets are less prone to disease and more likely to provide good crops in poorer soils.
Onions can be planted from February to early April, but organic matter or fertiliser should be added to the soil at least one month before planting. Add a bucket of garden compost or well-rotted manure for every square metre and add 35g of fertiliser.
Make a hole about 2cm deep in the soil and plant the onion sets around 10cm apart in rows about 30cm apart.
Gently push the sets into the soil so the tips are just showing. Make sure they are the right way up with the roots at the bottom, and then firm the soil around them.
Remember to label each row of onions.
Keep the area weed-free and watch out for birds pulling the onion sets up.
Water if the weather is dry and give an occasional feed with a general liquid fertiliser. Stop watering and feeding when the onions swell in mid-summer.
Wait for the leaves to die down in the summer. Onions can be harvested once the foliage has started to turn yellow and topple over.
Lift the bulbs before the foliage has completely died down.
Leave the lifted bulbs to dry.
When they are fully dry, the onions are ready for storing.
- Adapted from Royal Horticultural Society advice, www.rhs.org.uk
