Bake, fry & stew

Ideally, onions need to bake in the hot sun before storage, but this year's harvest will all be consumed within a few weeks anyway.

Onions nearly done

Onions are swelling nicely, with regular watering in the final stages before the tops start dying back.

Drying out

Never enough

You can never grow enough onions, but this crop isn't going to last long. They're not much bigger than they were when they started out.

Add water

A beautiful month, after a rainy start, with enough sunshine to allow things to bloom and ripen. Everything's needed watering, especially sweetcorn, beans, courgettes and some newly established raspberry bushes. Lots of early windfall apples and overripe plums about and with them, fruit flies and wasps.

Rack 'em up

Ideally, the onion harvest should last into the winter, but this year's crop isn't large enough and unless they're stored well they can rot. Enough for the next few weeks though and a lot more flavour than those in the shops.

Onion angst

They might look great, but perhaps they're all top and no bottom, as the actress didn't say to Cardinal Wolsey. The tops are great, chopped up in salads, but there are signs that some of them are bolting - running to seed - before the base swells properly, even though they've been watered and the soil's been pampered with wood ash and potash.

Future Casserole

Fennel, onions and broad beans. Add water. Ready for the pot in about three months.

Heads up

Allium cepa

Regrow

Back from a six month blog sabbatical and a late cold winter that went on and on. Now, eventually, it's warmed up, the most reluctant seeds have germinated and for the first time in several years, slugs and snails have not been a major problem.

Onion low

A paltry crop of onions this year, grown from sets that didn't get enough and then got too much water. At least no sign of white rot, which I've had in previous years when there have been bumper crops but instead of being self sufficient until mid winter, this lot won't last a couple of months.

Crops

Leeks

Onions

Parsnips

Spinach

Cauliflower

Shake the tree

Ice in the water trough, apples out of reach, a curled fox slumbering in sunshine. Kale ready, leeks on the way, onions started.

Shed Load

Rack 'Em Up

Test for Onions

Graham Onions was called up to the squad to face the Australians at Cardiff this week, which reminded me to visit the allotment and harvest some of my crop.

Onions

Nearly ready - just need another week of sun. Shame it's set to rain.

Sow when the moon is low

Peculiarly warm, dark, day, busy up the allotment :
Cycled with a bag of compost from home, dug a trench and buried it
Cleared more space and planted another 50 onion sets
Planted 24 garlic cloves
Planted a dozen broad beans in open ground & a few in a seed tray
Made a small bonfire
Skimmed off some pond weed
Harvested : a marrow shaped pumpkin, the rest of the late new potatoes, a parsnip, some rocket & the last cucumber.