It’s fantastic. Mid December, frosty, cloudy, cold and wet.
I don’t particularly want to go outside, but seeing those little Senshyu onions poking through the soil, i find it hard not to. They’ve been in the ground for about a month now i think, and are a particularly comforting shade of green, if that is possible! After a battering by the wind last week, a few are bent and broken but fighting fit nonetheless.
Not only do the onions fill a winter gap where the soil would otherwise be unused, they fit perfectly into the rotation. Bed 1 (for want of a better name!) is the roots bed (houses carrots, parsnips, leeks and onions) which will become the Cucurbit bed next year. I don’t need the half being used by the onions until Late June/Early July, so the onions will sit happily. They will be replaced by a variety of squash, raised in pots and transplanted in later.
When i plant the standard onion sets next year, there will be no less than 200 onions sitting in a space no bigger than 2.5 square metres. Easy as that. Whoever said veg growing wasn’t easy 😉
The most difficult job this winter, and incidentally, one of the most rewarding, is to (realistically) update the planting scheme, without overdoing it.
Has anyone had any bad experiences with Senshyu or other overwintering onions? I don’t mean muggings or bad attitudes! , but pests or problems. A bit of advance warning is never a bad thing.
Vegmonkey and the Mrs. 
No never have tried these, I am going to have too someday. Maybe next winter.
Looking very good!
My Solent Wight are still hiding below the ground but I did plant them very late so I’m hoping that means they’ll spend the winter growing good strong roots ready to spring into life next year.
Fingers crossed… 😉
ive planted the same onions as you but as seed not sets and they seem to be doing ok small sedddlings though. ive taken them from soil and potted them up. im just rearranging my garden so i can use raised beds.
Hi Paul – didn’t get any garlic in., grew some last year, in the spring, but i wouldn’t recommend it as it was v. small. You should have some quality garlic come spring. You’re gonna stink!
Hawthorns – sounds like the perfect solution if you haven’t anywhere to put them at the mo…i can massively advocate the use of raised beds.
hello ive managed to get some garden compost now and ive filled 2 of the 3 beds with it. so i can now dig up onions and carrots and transplant them. do you think they will grow anymore if i do this now that its winter
They might grow but you’d be better off leaving them where they are as carrots don’t particularly like being moved.
If you plant up the beds in March when the soil starts to warm up, you’ll have carrots and onions by July / August.
ive now finished building and filling raised beds ive posted pics on gyo in top tips.