Onions can be very easy to grow and are quite undemanding, they are an ideal vegetable for the novice gardener, and you could even plant them straight into your herbaceous borders. I have decided to grow the onion sets (small immature onions), as they are easier to handle than seed. The sets have a better resistance to pests and disease and I can assure you there are plenty of them, onion fly, bolting, onion thrips and plenty of nasty viruses too. I find that companion planting usually keeps most things at bay. Plant onions with carrots for example, the carrots confuse the onion fly and the onions confuse the carrot fly, throw a few Calendulas in there to attract the hoverfly too. The bulbs do best in a sunny, well-drained site, on a sloping garden for example. Plant them up on the higher ground, this will prevent them rotting in the wet soil. Onions do well in fertile soil, but like garlic they don’t need high nitrogen, so it is not necessary to put on fresh compost or manure.

PLANTING
I tend to cram my onions in because I very rarely let them get to maturity before I’m pulling them up to use in cooking, the recommended distances are10 inches (25cm) between the rows and 5-10 inches (2-4cm) between each bulb. Press the bulb gently into the ground so the top is just showing, that way if a bird thinks it’s spotted a juicy worm it will have a tough job trying to get it out of the ground. You will find that the bulb will push its way to the surface of the soil when it has rooted.

CROP CARE
Try to keep weeds to a minimum around the bulbs. Their upright growth isn’t effective at suppressing weeds, and these will take away nutrients that the onions need. Watering isn’t usually necessary, infact if they get too wet in the middle of July they don’t store as well.

HARVESTING
As soon as the leaves start turning yellow you can either pull the onions up and leave them to dry naturally in a warm, dry place or leave them in place and bend the necks over, they should be ready for storing after a couple of weeks. If the necks are large then use these onions first as they have a high water content and don’t store well. The ones for storing can be platted together like garlic or you could use a pair of old tights to do the same job. Put in an onion and tie a knot then put in another onion and so on until the leg is full!

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