O is for onions

 This is an old traditional weather rhyme - is it correct? does the thickness of onion skins vary from year to year? Can't say I've ever noticed.

Onion's skin very thin

Mild winter coming in,

Onion's skin thick and tough,

Coming winter cold and rough.

So many of my recipes start with an onion and would be tasteless without, which always reminds me of the cooks in wartime who had to do without them. Back then hardly any onions were grown in this country and it was only later that Onion Sets became available for the home gardener. Sets are one year old onions that have been grown from seed, dug and stored over winter to be sold for planting in February or March.

We always grew a bed full of onions, from sets, at the smallholding that kept us going nearly all year. For a few years we also grew the over-winter onions which became available in the 1990's . The sets for these are planted in Autumn and ready in early summer - filling the gap before usual onions are lifted.  We stopped growing those when we had some problems with onion rot in the maincrop and it was thought they might cross contaminate.

I looked at the onion page in my little book "A Potted History of Vegetables" by Lorraine Harrison.

On the history of onions the book says that remains of onions were found in Neolithic Age settlements in Jericho, dating back to 5,000BC. They are thought to be native to Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran. They were introduced into India and Mediterranean regions and by Roman times their use was widespread.

I tried growing onions this year again even though I'd said the year before that the space was better used for something that either costs more or better eaten very fresh from the garden. All I ended up with was a handful of golf ball size as they got flattened early on - next door neighbours cat perhaps?

Definitely Not growing them in 2024. I'd rather have more space for green beans, runner beans and sweetcorn.

Back Tomorrow

Sue

 

Saturday 25th + Day 19

 Flowers on the table this week have been a beautiful bunch of roses from Son and DiL for Mother's Day.

Son texted me Wednesday to ask if I was OK because DiL and both children had been poorly since Monday and I'd been there Sunday, but I seem to have avoided bugs again.

 Day 19 of the Value Range Experiment

A potato, bacon, onion and tomato layer bake served with cabbage. This is something I'd not made since the children all lived at home when it was something we often had as it's a way to stretch a little bacon. The first time I came across it was when Colin's Mum made it. 

Sliced potatoes are par-boiled for a few minutes and chopped bacon and onion fried but not too crispy, then layer up everything with a couple of tinned tomatoes and some of the juice from a can of tomatoes and plenty of pepper.

It's a bit of a faff to make for one person but used minimal ingredients from what I'd bought for the experiment.

I took a photo but it was only when I came to upload that I found the camera dial had accidently been on an odd setting and the photo was almost dark.

It's there somewhere!

It was good to have a mild and dry morning on Tuesday to get a bag of onion sets planted. After not planning to grow any this year until one morning I woke early and switched the radio on the farming programme where they were saying that last years' drought had put some farmers off growing onions this year and there might be a shortage. Despite the poor growing conditions and my onions being smaller than they should have been I've only just come to the end of what I grew last year so probably saved myself several pounds. So the sets are in and covered with one of the solid net frames that BiL made for me - hope it will stop the birds pulling them up or Crumble, next door's cat, digging them out. Something has already nibbled the leaves on the two new rhubarb plants.

I'm sending off for some small net cloche tunnels because I reckon it's the blasted pigeons. They've been sitting in the flowering cherry pecking the flower buds for weeks, it's a wonder there are any left for the header photo.

Pigeons are not my favourite birds!

Back Tomorrow

Sue

Food Production in Early July

 Things are coming along OK - although we need rain. I filled up the big water butt from the mains a couple of weeks ago and now it's empty again.

Had the first picking of French Climbing Beans yesterday. I discovered one of the plants absolutely covered with Black Fly - never had that on this sort of beans before. I filled a spray bottle with water and washing up liquid and tried that - hope it works as I don't want to lose the plants so soon and also don't want to use anything nasty.

 

Sweetcorn plants - too close ( a common theme) , behind them is the space where I shall put the Kale and Brussels Sprout plants when they arrive. I've got the wire netting frames BiL made for me and enviromesh to put round and over them.

 

Beetroot - too close with a couple of rows of leeks squashed in behind them and 4 courgette plants - Two too many!

 

Onions in front - which I won't bother with again ( don't know why I grew them this year as I'd decided not to grow them again a few years ago - cheap to buy and too dry is the reason). There are 3 squash plants - with room to trail - just about! and empty canes for the runner beans on the right some have been sown here and some in a small tray and the French Climbing on the left.

In the greenhouse are too many tomato plants, 3 cucumber plants at the end, one aubergine standing on the water butt and one more on the ground. I moved one tomato plant to outside a few weeks ago but could really have moved two more out before they got too big to move.

Four pepper plants, the basil and two more aubergines standing up on the staging

 

Pointy peppers beginning to get pointy

 

Some of the aubergines flowers have set but others just fell off. There will be enough to a big batch of make my favourite aubergine/tomato pasta sauce

Nice to get back to growing food again after my enforced year off last year. 

Back Tomorrow

Sue

A Good Weather Week and a Snowdrop Surprise

 Still no sign of winter here in Suffolk and several days have been better than forecast with more sun than the previous weeks and only a couple of frosty nights.

  And good weather made for a good week for me with my adventure into Cambridgeshire and some gardening done (and don't anyone dare say there's no such thing as bad weather, in my opinion any day that the sun doesn't shine in winter is Bad Weather!)

The Snowdrop Surprise was yesterday when there was a knock at the door and there stood a lady with a huge bag of Snowdrops in-the-green. I was so surprised and babbled a thank you. The lady is Jan, a blog reader and she must have worked out which village I live in and as she had lots of snowdrops she had very kindly brought me a bagful.

Look at these......absolutely beautiful and so many! Thank you so much Jan.

Straightaway I went out and dug some slots in the bit of lawn that's not going to be cut so often under the pear trees. I also put some out on the front lawn . The Anglesey Abbey snowdrops have been planted in bare soil in various places in the borders so between those and these new ones I should have a good show next year.

Blog readers are so kind.

Last Monday I'd  planned to go back to the WI that I used to go to but after reading the parish magazine for that village while I was visiting Brother-in-Law, and discovering the subject was Yoga my re-starting has been put off until March. I know I said that sometimes the subject is better than it sounds but honestly Yoga is something I can do without!

The bargain offer of patio/greenhouse portable bed with onion and shallot sets arrived. The bed's been fied with some rotted down turf that came off the new veg beds, then a piece of cardboard to discourage any of the roots to re-shoot and a bag of multi purpose compost on top. Onions don't need a lot of depth but another bag of compost might be needed on top before planting in March

The bed is a bit floppy so I've pushed one of the strawberry pots up against it to hold up the side. . 

I emptied another bag of multi-purpose compost onto one of the vegetable beds and tried to rake everything level.Then covered it with the plastic cloche tunnel - should help it warm up a bit. The other two beds need weeding and compost added to prepare them.

 

 Haven't had flowers on the table for weeks until I was in Aldi and saw these bunches of mixed tulips. Lovely colours - a late winter treat.

A Marshalls gardening catalogue arrived during the week and I'm debating about trying Alstromeria plants for the 99th time since leaving the smallholding or give up and just buy a bunch now and again. I think I will be tempted to buy some Osteospermum plants as the ones that the previous owners had planted last spring put on a wonderful show for months out in the front garden.  (BTW the snowdrops in-the-green for sale in the flower catalogue were even more expensive than those from Anglesey Abbey!)

This week I have been grateful for

• A surprise gift of snowdrops
• Watching Winter Olympics on TV
• Letters from penfriends in Canada and a Windy Scottish Island.
• Feeling better about driving further
• Good weather for gardening

Have a Good Weekend where ever you are

I shall be back Monday with my February library book haul

Sue

Knowing Your Onions

 If you go to Morrisons in Diss and want to buy onions that are English and not in a plastic bag - Sorry you can't.

The loose onions are from Spain and the English onions are packed in a plastic bag.

Blurry but it Does say Spain - honestly.

The Union Jack says they are grown here and the label says Norfolk. Why do they have to be in a bag? that's what I want to know.

I choose the Norfolk onions and the bag will go in the rubbish which goes to the incinerator. But which was the right choice??

 

Back Tomorrow

Sue

So Christmas is Cancelled and Crop Disappointments

Oh what good news (NOT) yesterday..................actually it was announced after 10pm on Tuesday night...............I heard it on Radio 4 as I was going to bed. I'm talking about  limiting numbers meeting socially to 6 and supposedly the news was revealed at that time to stop some scandal(?) involving someone in government (?) getting onto the mornings front pages. I have no idea of the truth of that but the cynical in me thinks it sounds about right.  No idea if this affects the swimming pool or the car boot sale and  scientists are cheerfully saying Christmas will be cancelled! Back to Puritan England then.

Thank you for all the comments yesterday with ideas for the pears. Unfortunately most seemed to include buying things such as alcohol that I don't keep in stock and as I'm on a budget ....things I don't buy for one-off recipes. I'm quite happy poaching a few at a time in a little water with lemon juice to keep them from going brown and a little sugar to bring out the pear flavour. I'm eating a bowl full every day so will get to the end of them in a week or three.

And the crop disappointments? well it  wasn't all wonderful in the garden this year.............is it ever?

I got all the onions up to dry out a few weeks ago - such a poor crop. I didn't get round to weighing them but  surely could have bought the same weight from the supermarket for less than the cost of the onion sets last March.
The tops on my onions were blown over early which stopped them getting any bigger and some were even going rotten on the bottom when I brought them in. More have gone rotten since, so that what's left won't last much more than a couple of months.

A kilo from Asda are 80p with 11 in the pack and many of mine are smaller than shop bought size.

A pack of  heat treated onion sets in the new Marshalls Seed Company catalogue that arrived last week are  £4.49 for 75. I buy heat treated so they don't run to seed and it's true these didn't bolt during the dry weather.

Then Butternut  Squash...................I started off with 5 plants from new seeds - a variety said to be extra large. I planted them into big pots on the patio and watered regularly. After a while it was obvious that 3 of the plants were dying off. They'd had flowers which hadn't opened but then just seemed to give up. Two plants hung on a bit longer looking nice and green with plenty of flowers  but again the flowers didn't open. Finally one flower produced just one squash, and yes it is bigger than normal.
 I'll use it to make a big batch of vegetable curry later in the winter.

So 2021......Onions and squash................to  grow or not to grow, that is the question?

Back Tomorrow
Sue

Onions Are In

I haven't grown onions since moving here as it seemed silly to use the limited space when they are one of the cheapest veg to buy. Then last year my sister gave me a few sets she had spare and they reminded me how good it is to have different sizes and fresh too.
I decided there would be room for a few and ordered some of the heat treated ones as they - hopefully - don't go to seed so readily. We always grew heat treated at the smallholding as we had such dry weather there.

Heat treated sets need planting out as soon as they are received and the weather was perfect so now there are 5 rows across one of my vegetable beds. I was glad it was just one net as it's a bit of a back breaking job.

Back Tomorrow
Sue