KNOW YOUR ONIONS

KNOW YOUR ONIONS

Onions, leeks, shallots, garlic, chives and spring onions are grown in gardens and allotments as an essential part of the rotation. They enjoy very fertile soil that is free draining but can retain moisture during the growing season. Onions have been in cultivation for over 5000 years. They are a staple food full of goodness and are virtually available all year round with good planning, growing, harvesting and storage. They can be cooked, pickled or eaten raw and fresh and current research is indicating they possess immense health giving properties.

Most people are aware of how healthy garlic is as it has been extensively studied, but now food scientists are turning their attention to the humble onion and findings are just about putting it into superfood status. For good health and a long life it is being recommended to eat an onion in your food every day. However don’t forget the apple a day, plus plenty of rhubarb, beetroot and if you can get a bush of Aronia, the chokeberry include that on the menu.

Allotment gardeners live a long and healthy life. City Road allotments have seen quite a few gardeners receive their fifty years service awards.

Health benefits

 

Onions contain the vitamins A, E, C and B6 as well as the minerals iron, molybdenum, manganese, chromium, calcium and potassium. They are full of dietary fibre and antioxidants, especially the red onions.

Onions lower cholesterol, inhibit hardening of the arteries, and help to maintain healthy blood pressure. They also contain the flavonoid quercitin, an anti inflammatory antioxidant useful against some forms of arthritis and hay fever and help the fight against several cancers and heart disease.

The high levels of chromium assist diabetics with insulin controlled sugar levels and also reduce bad cholesterol levels.

Growing onions

Onions can be grown from seed or sets. I usually sow seed indoors on a windowsill at the end of February using my favourite variety Hytech. I have tried numerous varieties over time, but Hytech gave me huge sweet onions that stored for over seven months. However there are many other new varieties worthy of a trial. The red onion Red Baron gave me good results as did Sturon and Stuttgarter Giant. However if you want a really huge onion Kelsae, used for exhibitors, but available for everyone to try is excellent. It needs a very long season to grow into a large bulb so is best sown at the end of January. I prick my onion seedlings out individually into small cellular trays and grow them on in my unheated greenhouse. They are ready to plant out at the end of April, spacing them four inches apart in rows twelve inches apart.

Most of these varieties can be bought as sets, which saves a lot of space and time or for those without a greenhouse. Plant sets in March at the same spacing.

In August onions may start to swell the bulbs, but don’t bend the tops over to hasten this, as some continue to grow and will give a bigger bulb if left to ripen naturally. They will bend over when they are ready. Lift them on a warm sunny day and dry them off in full sun on a hard surface. They can ripen up over a few weeks before cleaning and either bag up in loose nets or pleat them into ropes for storage. I run polypropylene binder twine through the pleat just in case the dried up onion foliage is not strong enough to hold the weight when you get a heavy crop.

Shallots are grown the same way as bulb onions, but are started as sets.

Spring onions and pickling onions prefer a humus rich sandy soil or one that is very well drained. They like warm conditions so do not sow them outdoors too early. I sow my pickling onions thinly in a broad band four inches wide as they do not need a lot of space provided the soil has been well manured. Pickling onions can be eaten in numerous different recipes both fresh and cooked as well as pickled.

Plant of the week

Snowberry, Symphoricarpos albus is at its best in early winter when its pure white fruit are very attractive after the deciduous shrub has lost all its leaves. This shrub will grow on most soils even in moist conditions in the shade, but it will produce more berries if grown in full sun on fertile soil.

It grows in woodlands, floodplains and riverbanks in its natural habitat in North Canada. It is very hardy growing up to six foot tall forming a dense thicket of stems arising from suckers helping it to spread readily. Birds do not eat the fruit till late winter or early spring. The fruit is considered poisonous to humans as they are full of alkaloids, but no-one has ever suffered too severely as they are very unpalatable and the fruit will cause violent vomiting soon after ingestion.

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THE GARDENING YEAR STARTS QUIETLY

THE GARDENING YEAR STARTS QUIETLY

Recent weather has curtailed progress of any outdoor gardening activities. The gales continued to blow and now my greenhouse has lost over twenty panes of glass, as well as the ventilator and the door which blew off. Another two days were taken up with collecting shattered glass fragments blown over a huge area of garden. Gales also blew down about thirty feet of fence panels, so I may change the fence to a ranch style which should not be so vulnerable to strong winds.

We have also had a lot of rain, and not much frost or snow, as I pen my thoughts early on Hogmanay, but knowing that when the magazine appears on Saturday 11^th January 2014 we could well be seeing a wee bit of serious winter.

Who knows what global warming has in store for us in 2014.

It has been too wet to walk over the soil surface, other than for harvesting the numerous fresh vegetables available following the brilliant 2013 summer. However we did have a long dry spell just before Christmas when I got most of my fruit bushes pruned as well as some roses. The dry spell also encouraged a full team effort, (me and Anna) to get all the surface weeds removed and clear up all the leaves.

My main rose bed and all my climbers will be pruned and tied up in mid January to mid February depending on weather. Apple trees will also get pruned at this time to encourage a balance of fruiting wood and strong young growth. I will also continue to lower the crown on our old Bramley apple tree to allow most of the picking from the ground. I am told I am getting too old to clamber up trees to reach that perfect apple just slightly out of reach at the end of a long slender branch.

Pruning grape vines

My other pruning task to be completed in January is my grape vines both in my gale damaged greenhouse as well as all my outdoor vines. I am hoping that the greenhouse vines are well hardened off and quite tough so should not suffer removal of the greenhouse in winter and building a replacement around the main rods. My ten foot long greenhouse has a permanent framework of five upright rods spaced two feet apart in a row on the east side of the greenhouse. It is side shoots from this that produce the bunches of grapes. I grow my tomatoes on the west side as well as the south end. They all seem to be happy growing together.

I prune every shoot on my grape vine back to one or two buds in January, as if left till February or later they are liable to bleed as sap rises up quite early in the season by which time the cut ends should have healed over.

Indoor tasks

Geranium cuttings taken last autumn are now all well rooted and can be potted up in individual pots. I will add extra grit to my compost to improve the drainage and pot them up in the smallest pots available as geraniums are prone to damping off in winter. I also grow them cool otherwise they will grow too big for windowsills, and I don’t know when I will have a greenhouse ready for them.

My Amaryllis bulb pot started off with one strong flower spike, but then another three flower stems appeared. Finally two of the smaller bulbs in the pot have produced flower stems, so it is going to be an absolute cracker. The foliage and flower stems are all quite tall so they needed four bamboo stakes and ties to give them support.

Keep them moist but not wet and feed once a month at this time of year, but once a fortnight in spring and summer. Although they prefer to remain pot bound to encourage good flowering, I will need to pot mine up after flowering as the bulb growth has been very strong and the pots are now distorted and the top very heavy and liable to topple over unless they get a stronger pot with a wide base.

Plant of the week

Elaeagnus pungens maculata is an evergreen shrub with golden variegated leaves. It will grow on just about any soil and can reach up to 4 metres eventually, so is perfect for screening and adding bright colour to the garden in winter. It is happy in sun or shade, and although the flowers are very insignificant, they are said to have an exquisite perfume. My five foot tall elaeagnus planted eight years ago has yet to reward me with its perfume, but I am patient. It does not need any pruning other than removing any straggly shoots or those that revert back to green and lose their variegation.

It can be propagated by semi ripe cuttings in mid summer.

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NEW IDEAS FOR 2014 WITH HINDSIGHT

NEW IDEAS FOR 2014 WITH HINDSIGHT

Last week we reviewed the garden and allotment to analyse how plants and crops performed with a late spring, a brilliant summer then a poor autumn. We can never tell what the weather has in store for us, so we plan crops for what we hope will be a normal year.

Flowers

Some plants are very reliable and will give a great display no matter what kind of year we get. Geraniums, tuberous begonias, gladioli and chrysanthemums never let me down. When I lived in Darlington the drier sunnier climate allowed us to grow fantastic African marigolds. Now I always reckon Dundee is Scotland’s sunniest city, (I’m sure I read it somewhere) so my African marigolds should be just fine. In 2012 they were an absolute washout, but I tried them again last year. Growth was massive, but flowering was never a show stopper. This year I will have a few but they have to perform or they get deleted. Fuchsias did not like the hot weather, but they are special so will be grown again this year.

I have always loved roses, but black spot really tests them now there is not a decent chemical to spray them with. Some varieties have stronger foliage and can resist an attack, but many of my favourites such as Margaret Merrill and even Iceberg can suffer very badly.

Vegetables

Following the disastrous 2012 wet year when clubroot attacked every brassica, turnips, Swedes, radish, wallflowers and even my mustard green manures, I made many changes. Mustard green manure was replaced with red clover and tares, and most brassica varieties had to be bred for clubroot resistance. Most of these new varieties had been bred here at the James Hutton Institute, and results have been fantastic. I have had such heavy crops and no losses that we had far more than we could eat or freeze so a lot was given away. So this year it is back to Swede Marion or Gowrie, cabbage Kilaton and cauliflower Clapton. I still grow Brussels sprouts Wellington, but may try Crispus this year as it is clubroot resistant.

Fruit

Hopefully this year will see my first huge sweet berries from my new Big Ben blackcurrants, and also my new row of raspberry Glen Fyne.

I have tried cape gooseberries for too many years now. Last year’s great summer helped the growth and fruiting, but autumn was poor so the young fruits would just not ripen up. Outdoor plants were a waste of time and even in the greenhouse they did not impress me.

This is the goji berries last chance. If it doesn’t fruit, or the fruit is not absolutely delicious it gets dug out.

Outdoor grapes were a huge success, but then it was a great summer and all the varieties are early ripening so the poor autumn did not affect them. However, as they are only just planted, other than Solaris, which is in its third year, they will need training and good growing to see if they can continue to give good results.

Rondo, Regent, Solaris and Phoenix all gave some grapes that ripened just fine. Siegerrebe struggled to grow so it will need another year or more to try it out.

Outdoor cherry Cherokee was really good last year, so hopefully this will continue with an even better crop as the dwarf tree gets bigger.

This has to be the year my new varieties of pear, Beurre Hardy and the Christie, grafted onto my Comice in 2011 bear some fruit, as I did not get one fruit last year. Also my outdoor peach Peregrine failed to fruit last year, so hopefully it will crop heavily in 2014.

Apple grafts from local heritage varieties Park Farm Pippin, Lord Roseberry and Pearl will also give me some crop this year, hopefully, provided 2014 turns out to be a relatively normal year free from gales, blizzards, floods and tornadoes. Only time will tell.

Plant of the week

Cyclamen persicum has always been a favourite pot plant for autumn and winter flowering, always trying to time peak flowering around Christmas, but usually getting it too early. They come in a range of white, pink, mauve and scarlet colours. Keep them cool and moist but never wet and they are happier on a less sunny windowsill. They can flower every year with the right conditions. Water, some feeding and cool growing conditions after flowering will build up a strong corm. Dry it off in summer to give it a rest before starting it off again in autumn. If it needs repotting keep the corm above the soil surface to prevent any rotting of the new foliage or flowers.

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LOOKING BACK ON A GREAT YEAR

LOOKING BACK ON A GREAT YEAR

The success of garden plants is not really under our control. The weather determines whether they will be successful or not. After the disastrous 2012 cold wet year we were not really expecting a great year as we now feel climate change might just mean warmer rain but a lot more of it.

This year started off very late. Winter lasted a long time, and then spring was three to four weeks late and not all that exciting.

However summer did eventually arrive, temperatures climbed, the rain stopped and never really returned for the whole summer. People and plants responded with great delight. Garden and allotment got planted up, weeds got wiped out, the hose appeared and was used frequently, and when all the work was completed the sun lounger appeared after lying unused for over a year. As we relaxed on the patio enjoying the warm of our Scottish heatwave, the scent of climbing rose Gertrude Jekyll wafted over the scene. Flower beds have never been better with geraniums, marigolds and tuberous begonias all flowering in profusion.

Fruits in abundance

Strawberries were the first to respond to the dry sunny weather. Huge crops of sweet berries were picked over a long season with a range of different varieties and no losses due to botrytis.

Currants, gooseberries, raspberries, brambles and saskatoons all produced prolific crops. This created a major problem, as you can only eat so much fresh fruit. The freezer soon got packed to full capacity with fruit and vegetables. We were chomping our way through fruit, vegetables, salads and soups daily, and we had not even started harvesting the plums yet.

My only answer was to find more demijohns and start converting the spare fruit into wine, so now I have over thirty gallons of top quality fruit wine which should be ready for tasting after a couple of years. However some may not last all that long if early samplings show good results.

Apples and plums were unbelievable, giving us massive crops, but pears and my outdoor peach tree did not give one fruit. Shoots produced in 2012 did not get any warmth in summer or autumn to ripen up the wood so no fruit buds formed. Hopefully they will fruit prolifically in 2014.

Vegetables everywhere

Just like the fruit crops most vegetables responded to the brilliant summer. I used clubroot resistant varieties of cabbage, cauliflower and Swedes which proved to be a very worthwhile decision. Beetroot was so successful that I have still three rows in the ground but earthed up for frost protection into winter. Onions were a failure this year as white rot took hold the previous wet year and has now infected the crop this year. Summer salads are easy, but my autumn salads are all in full crop in December with plenty fresh leaves available for salads and stir frying.

Tomatoes under glass had a bad start with the delayed spring, but eventually made up and gave ripe sweet fruit till autumn. Grapes were also excellent, though warm weather in autumn was in short supply so ripening was very slow. Outdoor grape Brant gave a very heavy crop which was turned into more wine.

 

Flowers

It was a brilliant year for the roses as well as the summer bedding plants, gladioli, chrysanthemums, and even the spring bedding gave a great display, though a few weeks late. However my half hardy fuchsias did not like the heat wave and sulked till late summer as cooler days arrived then they had their day, just as I was about to turf them out. Outdoor fuchsia Mrs Popple had no problem with the hot summer and was covered in flowers for months right up till the end of November.

Each year seems to be totally different from the previous year so who knows what 2014 will be like.

However as the weather deliberately defies logic it is just as likely to give us an even warmer and sunnier 2014, just as it did in 1975 and 1976. With that pleasant thought in mind I will sign off this fantastic year and raising my glass, filled with vintage Saskatoon wine to the next brilliant year.

Plant of the week

Poinsettia will always add a festive touch and a bright splash of colour as the large coloured bracts are very showy. It is possible to retain the plants for a few years, but it is hardly worthwhile as they are not expensive, and they are very demanding in their growing requirements, especially the twelve week period of short days to induce bract production.

Keep the plant warm and water sparingly and never leave it sitting in water. It is a tropical plant so give it plenty of sunshine on a windowsill.

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