3rd March 2019 - What do you put in the bed when you harvest winter onions?

In the summer when everyone harvests their winter onion social media is full of people asking what they should put in their beds now that the onions have been harvested.  Of course you can plant brassica's or legumes which would be next on the rotation but I plant onions!  My family eat a lot of onions and I can never grow enough but one of the ways I try is by growing the all year round.  

In order to grow onions all year I have to be organised.  In February I plant my sets into modules; today I planted 120 sets and I still have another 2 bags of sets to plant which should be at least another 240 sets.  At the moment they're in the polytunnel but I will move them outside when I do the rest of them.  One of the things to remember even when planting in modules is to protect them from pigeons!

I have found that onions are quite happy to be transplanted from modules into their growing position; you don't need to disturb the roots too much when you transfer them but even if the roots are disturbed the onions still grow well.  

So, if you're thinking about what you're going to put into the winter onion beds, it's worth thinking about preparing some more onions to go in when you have harvested.

Edit:  I have been asked about crop rotation and specifically been told that you can't plant summer onions in the bed that you grew winter onions because of onion root fly.  I do rotate my crops but honestly the distance of the beds would actually have very little affect on the root fly maggot which can migrate quite a long way from where it hatched to your onions.  You can grow onions in a bed for a full year before rotating to another bed. If your soil can get to 35°C or more then that will kill the pupae but that's only likely in a hot bed or compost bin.  Don't plant bright yellow plants near your onions, because the adult fly are attracted to the colour and often lay their eggs at the base of yellow plants.  Because the flies are attracted to bright yellow colours you can buy yellow sticky cards that the fly is attracted to and the  stick to; you should change the traps twice weekly and it's a good idea to record changes in fly activity so that you can think about nematodes for future years.

In addition to the onions I have made a start sowing beetroot.  As you know I'm not great at growing things from seeds but I'm trying something new this year.  First I'm only sowing a small number at a time; I'll be waiting for the first lot to germinate before I sow any more and then I'll do no more than 10 seeds.

I'm also sowing them into the coir expanding biscuits.  I put half of them into the tray to expand last week but didn't have time to sow before I had to leave because Middle L cut his foot and I had to take him to the hospital.  They therefore had nearly a week to fully expand (they only really need 24 hours!) I put 8 seeds into the little dips and then I filled the rest of the trays with more biscuits to expand.

Last week I planted my leeks into the roots bed and so the root trainers were freed up.  I have quite a lot of sweet peas that I want to grow this year so I have used the root trainers for them and I'm also saving toilet roll middles to grow some more.  

I've also noticed that my lemon tree is not very happy, from reading it seems like it has been too cold, the best way to deal with it is to remove the leaves and give it a feed.  I'm a bit worried about removing all of the leaves but I'll give it a feed and cover it with fleece and see how it goes; hopefully it will recover and I will have to remember to fleece it at the end of summer this year.

Until next time
Happy Gardening x