Growing Winter Onions Two Different Ways

All through the gardening year, it’s been difficult to know if we’d be able to find some compost, plants or seeds for the allotment. This was true when I was looking out for winter onion sets. I saw that winter onion plants could be ordered online and, as I didn’t know if we’d be able to find some sets, I ordered some plants. As it turned out I managed to buy some sets from our local garden centre.

We collected our onion sets early in September before our plants arrived. I’d dug over a bed that we’d grown potatoes in over summer and we decided to get our onion sets into the ground. I think that the sooner they are planted the better the chance of a good crop. It gives the sets a chance to get established before the onset of any bad winter weather.

Our winter onion plants arrived a week or so later and we wasted no time in getting them planted. However, it was difficult to decide exactly how they should be planted. We decided the best method would be to plant them in compost filled trenches rather than trying to plant them directly into the soil.

It was difficult to decide how deep to plant the onions. Hopefully, we’ve got it about right. We’ve planted a few of our leftover onion sets in a row between the plants as a direct comparison of how the sets and plants compare.

We’ll now have to see how they all get on over winter. For the next few days, the forecast is for the weather to remain decent but by the middle of next week, it looks like autumn will arrive bringing some much colder temperatures accompanied by spells of heavy rain and gale force winds.

Copyright: Original post from A Gardener's Weather Diary http://ossettweather.blogspot.co.uk/ author M Garrett