- This is about growing onions,
unsolid onions in fact, sometimes called spring onions.
You grow them in exactly the same way,
well, not quite exactly
but so similar that we can cover it all in one film
and I'll point out the differences as we go along.
In this case I'm filling a tray
with some homemade compost
that I put through a very rough sieve.
You could also use any multi-purpose compost.
It doesn't have to be specifically seed compost.
The main thing is that there's some drainage capabilities.
The worst thing for seeds
is compost that lies wet and soggy.
I'm pushing it in
because that means I can get a decent amount of compost.
When compost is light and fluffy,
it's better to firm it in before sowing or pricking out
and that way you've got a nice firm medium
which won't all fall apart when you push it out
at planting time.
So the seeds, this is some home safed seed actually
which makes it a bit different.
Not so perfect looking, got little clusters
but lovely, nice seeds there.
I've filled a tray with compost.
You want reasonable sized cells
of four centimeters, just over an inch
so that there's a decent amount of compost there.
Onion seedlings are surprisingly hungry
even though they look quite thin and meager.
So I'm being not exactly precise here
but I'm aiming four, six, eight even, seeds per cell.
And it can be that you could go even more.
If you want spring onions,
you could do up to 10 seeds per cell
and you'll be planting these out as a clump,
not thinning them out.
And well, you've got your bunch of spring onions
in that case.
But even if it's bulb onions,
they are very happy growing together
being planted together as a clump.
And what it means is you get say
four, five medium onions per little block.
Instead of if you thin them down to one,
you would get one big one.
And on the hole it works out more efficient.
You seem to get more onions
and you certainly get a bigger crop
compared to the amount of compost you've used
and the amount of space needed in a greenhouse, for example.
So this is February late winter
and it's about as early as you wanna sow onions
in the first half of the year
or you could've sowed these,
one can sow them in late August
right at the end of summer to plant out in early autumn.
Or sow them direct in late summer, early autumn.
And that way they stand the winter as small plants.
And I do that every year actually for spring onions.
There are some out in the garden now
which are looking really well.
They've had quite a bit of frost on them in cold weather
but onions are very tolerant to that.
You don't need to worry about cold on onions.
It's really, you do want to get them going early
'cause what happens then is they have more time to grow.
To some extent anyway,
they're triggered by daylight so onion bulb formation
begins around the time that day start to shorten.
Which means that if you can get your onions in the ground
in good time, you have more chance
of getting a decent sized bulk
'cause they would've put on quite a bit of leaf and root.
General plant growth before the energy
goes into making bulbs.
And on that note, just one quick word on sets.
You can also grow onions from sets as opposed to seeds.
And the sets do not want to go in early
because they are already a slightly grown small onion.
And if you plant them too early,
it triggers that small onion into thinking
it's been through a winter
and then it will flower rather than making a bulb.
So sets, do not plant them before the spring equinox.
That's my advice.
Where as seeds you can sow even in late winter
as we are here.
And having some of the trays,
I'm giving a light, gentle water from above
with a fine rose on the can.
This compost was quite moist so I'm not watering a lot.
Sometimes you might need to water a bit more
and then let them drain
and put them wherever you want to let them grow.
Basically in this case it's winter
so I'm bringing them indoors to the house
where they're warmer.
For planting out, onions are hardy plants.
They resist some frost, cold weather.
And you can pop them in early spring.
It's 13th of March today.
So this is a good average time to plant them.
And I'm making holes for the modules,
which I sowed them into four or five weeks ago.
And they're multi-sown as we saw at different times.
So here we have four, five, six onions in a clump
and I'm putting them in quite deep.
This is a variety of normal bulb onions, yellow onions.
You could plant them when they're bigger than this.
On the hole, I find that plants do really well
when they go in quite small
because that gives them more chance of establishing quickly
with less root disturbance.
And you can see how quick it is.
You make a little hole, pop it in.
I'm also leaning on the bed a bit
as I'm sure you've noticed.
And all I'm doing really is pushing the compost down
so that doesn't matter.
And that now is a row of onions
is eight plants times average five,
probably 40 onions potentially there
which are gonna be then fleeced over
to grow on for harvest in the summer.
The onion family has huge versatility
and look at these onions here
which I sowed in late August last year.
This is now April so they're coming up eight months old
and I'll multi-sowed them in a clump six to eight.
Even some of them had 10 seeds actually.
So a lot of onions there.
I've already taken out one or two big ones
from most of these clumps
and this is what undo's.
Thinning out as I harvest.
So twisting out the largest one there or two
and then to get them ready for table.
All you need to do is peel off the outer sheath like that.
And you have a lovely spring onion.
And the reason these look a bit yellow and grossy
is cause they have been here all winter.
So these have just be standing here
without any protection whatsoever.
No fleece or mush or cloche.
They have frost and hail and lots of rain and wind.
And yet, you know, they're now really growing strongly
and giving lots of lovely food.
So that is one option you have.
Sow them in late summer.
In this case, August.
(scallions rustling)
Here we are, 10 weeks later.
And these are the clumps of onion seed
that I sowed in February, planted in March.
So it's now 14 weeks since they were sown,
10 weeks since they were planted here.
They've had some fleece over
to help them through the cold weather
of late March and April
and it was quite frosty.
They don't mind being frozen
but keeping cold winds off speeds their early growth
so that's how already they're a good size onion.
Suitable, very suitable for harvesting as spring onions.
Now, if I wanna keep these all to grow into bulb onions,
which they will do.
Its a bulb onion variety stir on.
And I'll let all these grow.
I'll have nine.
In this case there's nine here, quite small onions
rather than say four or five medium-sized.
Or if there's only one or two really big.
So it's your choice entirely.
So what you can do
at this stage is gently pull and twist,
cajole some of these onions out of the clump
to thin them out.
And that gives a harvest of a spring onion,
even though this is a bulb onion variety.
'Cause at this stage of growth, spring onion,
basically it's an immature onion
which hasn't yet bulbed up so it's more stem than bulb.
And you can see, I can just peel off the little sheath off,
old leaf there and that's nice spring onion.
And I'm gonna actually go through
and do all the these in the next week or 10 days.
We're going to have heaps of spring onions
'cause I want to get all of these clumps
which are for bulb onions down to four or five.
And then we'll see them late July
probably in about another two months,
how they've swelled up
in their final stage of growth making bulbs.
(scallions rustling)
Now it's middle of July and its onion harvest time.
Five months after they were sown
these multi-sown blocks of onions are ready to come out.
How do you judge when to harvest an onion?
Do you see how the tops are all gone flat?
I did help them a bit.
They'd gone down more than a half, two thirds.
And for me that's a sign that harvest is approaching.
There's always a few that tend to stand up
and it's good to push those ones over
so that it softens the neck.
Sometimes otherwise they can develop a long stem
and a neck that doesn't dry very well.
So I've pushed the remaining ones down
so they're all down now.
The neck of each onion is bent over at right angles.
And even in the last few days actually,
I've noticed the bulbs swelling a bit.
(horse neighs)
It's a very joyful site.
So when you can see that
not only is there a good size onion there,
but they're starting to color up as well.
The tops are still green.
So it's not a question of waiting for the tops to go yellow.
And you can see how four or five onions in a clump
quite close based
even where we've taken some spring onions out
back in May,
we're getting hell of a harvest here.
It's gonna be fascinating to dry these off a bit
and then weigh them to see what there is.
So in terms of drying, what I'm gonna do
is put them in a crate
in such a way that you wanna have it
so that there's some air around the leaves.
This crate is now gonna go undercover
on a pallet in my compost bay.
It could go in a greenhouse,
it could go in garage on a table.
That's all good.
Or if your climate is quite reliably dry
you could put it, your crates of onions,
or even just loose onions on the soil.
You could just leave them like this to dry in the sun.
So it's up to you how you do it.
But they do want to have a period of drying
with air around the bark of the stalks
which are still green so that they cure and dry
and then they will store well
through the winter, even until the spring.
Last year, we harvested onions like this
in the middle of July,
and I got them nice and dry over about a month.
And then with the dry tops, bunch them,
hung them up in the house
and we were still using them the following April.
So from harvesting now,
you've got a nine month period of usage for the onion.
What a great vegetable to grow.
It's fun to grow, lovely to harvest,
and they store.
You've got sweet food over a long period of time.
(scallions rustling)