Veg growers what should I put here ?

[Notafettler]

[QUOTE="PaulSB, post: 6082882, ]In the UK we need two months of 0-10C to break vernalization. The period of artificial chilling seems to be 30-60 days. I
[/QUOTE]
Fridge?

 

[Notafettler]

@mudsticks
Elephant garlic cooked wet or can you dry it?

 

[mudsticks]

@mudsticks
Elephant garlic cooked wet or can you dry it?

I've never tried drying it - they're about the size of a medium onion - so i imagine its possible.

I find they're too tasty to store for long - i just want to eat them up.

I've seen them stored in olive oil and eaten whole that way - and then of course you're left with garlicky olive oil for all manner of deliciousness

 

[mudsticks]

@mudsticks I've done a bit of reading around and it seems chilling garlic bulbs prior to planting is widespread in warm climates - hardly surprising when one thinks about it. In the UK we need two months of 0-10C to break vernalization. The period of artificial chilling seems to be 30-60 days. I did learn something else - it seems the longer one can keep the soil cool the larger the bulb and cloves will be.

Your comment re mulching made me realise the stupid error I made in 2018. I got a source of spent hops in autumn 2018. Winter 2018/19 I mulched the garlic bed after planting - nicely insulating the cloves! Never gave it a thought. This year I didn't mulch till spring when of course growth had started.

Never tried elephant garlic though have thought of it from time to time. I'm only growing half a bed of garlic in 2021 so may pop some in to the extra space available.

So we might infer that mulching late winter, after a cold spell would keep in that cold, help bulk up the cloves , and suppress the spring flush of weeds germinating at the same time ..

I'm suspecting the real pros have worked all this out, years back ..

 

[Mr Celine]

Onions are a pain if grown from seed, like watching cricket in slow motion. If grown from sets you will end up with a lots. £1.50 from Wilkos for 184. Yes I did count them.

Onion sets? IME it would be a lot less effort and more productive not to plant them but just cook them instead.
I tried for a few years but every time a third of them would be stolen by crows, a third of them would bolt and the remainder would eventually reach the same size that they had been when first planted.

Grown from seed I usually get enough medium size onions to keep me going until Christmas. A mini polytunnel is essential and a green house also helps.
This advice is based on a latitude of 55.6 degrees north and altitude of 130m above sea level on a windy site. Other locations are available.

 

[PaulSB]

Onion sets? IME it would be a lot less effort and more productive not to plant them but just cook them instead.
I tried for a few years but every time a third of them would be stolen by crows, a third of them would bolt and the remainder would eventually reach the same size that they had been when first planted.

Grown from seed I usually get enough medium size onions to keep me going until Christmas. A mini polytunnel is essential and a green house also helps.
This advice is based on a latitude of 55.6 degrees north and altitude of 130m above sea level on a windy site. Other locations are available.

I agree growing from seed or purchased plants is easy and is certainly my preferred method.

I'm wondering why a mini polytunnel is essential? If it's to protect against birds I simply shove a few bamboo canes in the ground, stretch netting across this and raise it up as the plants get established.

 

[Mr Celine]

I'm wondering why a mini polytunnel is essential?

My advice was site and weather specific so may not apply to balmy southern places like Chorley, which from a brief glimpse at the map is lower, much closer to the sea and two degrees further south than I am.

The polytunnel is planted out at the beginning of April and the tunnel is removed in June.
I planted out another row of onions in the open at the beginning of May. Despite being bigger at the planting out stage they are currently about half the size of the polytunnel ones and won't catch up.

 

[Notafettler]

Onion sets? IME it would be a lot less effort and more productive not to plant them but just cook them instead.
I tried for a few years but every time a third of them would be stolen by crows, a third of them would bolt and the remainder would eventually reach the same size that they had been when first planted.

Grown from seed I usually get enough medium size onions to keep me going until Christmas. A mini polytunnel is essential and a green house also helps.
This advice is based on a latitude of 55.6 degrees north and altitude of 130m above sea level on a windy site. Other locations are available.

I don't think I lost a single one (sets). You are supposed to plant in the autumn let them grow through the winter. You are not supposed to let them bolt. Pick them before they do.
Pick early summer or about now.
Will be picking all my shallots today.
Will have to store them in shredded paper as nobody is harvesting there wheat yet. Farmers are so unreliable!. When they do there is always some left in the field for gleaning.
I have just planted some seed onions in my greenhouse (top of the terraces)
But I will have to take out as to hot. I will plant in the spare space around asparagus.

This site meets the definition of windy.
Lincolnshire by the way top part.

 

[PaulSB]

My advice was site and weather specific so may not apply to balmy southern places like Chorley, which from a brief glimpse at the map is lower, much closer to the sea and two degrees further south than I am.

The polytunnel is planted out at the beginning of April and the tunnel is removed in June.
I planted out another row of onions in the open at the beginning of May. Despite being bigger at the planting out stage they are currently about half the size of the polytunnel ones and won't catch up.

Just interested as it was new to me. I'm afraid latitude 55.6 degrees north means little to me though a quick Google says Newcastle, South Shields are on that latitude.

 

[Mr Celine]

Just interested as it was new to me. I'm afraid latitude 55.6 degrees north means little to me though a quick Google says Newcastle, South Shields are on that latitude.

Newcastle is nearer 55.0.
55.6 passes through Carradale (Kintyre), Brodick (Isle of Arran), Kilmarnock, Biggar, Galashiels, Kelso and Bamburgh (Northumberland).

 

[Notafettler]

So we might infer that mulching late winter, after a cold spell would keep in that cold, help bulk up the cloves , and suppress the spring flush of weeds germinating at the same time ..

I'm suspecting the real pros have worked all this out, years back ..

All I have found from mulching is it's a great place for slugs and snails to hide. Although onions/garlic aren't on the top of there menu.
PS isn't that suggestion similar to using a fleece?

 

[PaulSB]

Newcastle is nearer 55.0.
55.6 passes through Carradale (Kintyre), Brodick (Isle of Arran), Kilmarnock, Biggar, Galashiels, Kelso and Bamburgh (Northumberland).

Ah got you now. I know Brodick, Biggar, Kelso and Gala - my wife hales from there. Think I'd want a polytunnel for everything! 😀

 

[Mr Celine]

Ah got you now. I know Brodick, Biggar, Kelso and Gala - my wife hales from there. Think I'd want a polytunnel for everything! 😀

Oove bid in Galae for 25 year. (You may need your wife to translate that). A full size polytunnel would have blown away today.

 

[PaulSB]

All I have found from mulching is it's a great place for slugs and snails to hide. Although onions/garlic aren't on the top of there menu.
PS isn't that suggestion similar to using a fleece?

This may depend on what you mulch with. I collect spent hops from a local micro brewery every week. I mulch my beds with these throughout the growing season and again in winter with the fabulous compost the hops make. The combination of raised beds and hop mulch means I rarely see a slug or snail in my crops.

If you can obtain hops I recommend them, especially for the compost heap. My heaps are usually around 55-60C and anything I chuck in breaks down in 7-10 days.

 

[PaulSB]

Peppers and earwigs!! Three years ago I had a problem with earwigs making a small hole in the top of my bell peppers, usually near the calyx, burrowing in and living inside the pepper. This makes them inedible and quickly causes rot. Last year no problems but the little buggers are back this year.

Too late to do much this season but have others encountered this? What was your solution?

I don't want to use chemicals as apart from tomato feed my allotment is 100% organic. I'm thinking if traps or perhaps smearing vaseline on the lower stem