Growing Garlic and Onions in 2019

 

Well, its that time of year when seeds are sown and bulbs are planted all in preparation for, fingers crossed, the great growing season ahead. This time around I'm getting ahead on the garlic onions and shallots.

 

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Growing Garlic

Once these two enormous bulbs were split down the were set to be planted 4-6 a square depending on the size of the cloves, this could lead to 20ish bulbs of garlic at harvest not including the same again I've already got planted from last years crop. this should see us through most if not all of the year and our garlic needs

The variety I went for is "Germidour" which is a violet-streaked skin with white cloves and a mild flavour, easily stored and split for cooking. Softneck variety which is good for storing.

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Shallots


One thing I can't get enough of is shallots, they are amazing and I wish I could grow 10x as much, to the point I'm looking for more space to fit some in.

Shallot 'Golden Gourmet' produces larger and better quality bulbs with reduced bolting incidence. The lovely golden brown skinned bulbs store well throughout the winter

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Onions

So these are Sturon and is a great all-round onion on account of its reliability and consistency. Has large, straw-coloured bulbs that show good bolting resistance and have a fine flavour and store well.

You may have noticed that all of these have traits of storing well, what's the point of growing something if it can only be enjoyed for a short time! we want to be enjoying them for as long as possible

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Filling Those Squares

We have very little left in the raised bed that's set up for square foot gardening. Growing garlic, onions and shallot will help fill many of these up. I'll be doing a layout plan over the next couple of weeks showing what we have where. All that is left is some herbs and last years leeks that have been riding out the cold.

One thing I have to do is to cover the beds early in the year. This netting helps keep cats from digging up and planting their own surprises for me and also birds from causing damage.

These were all popped into the raised bed that's set up for square foot gardening at 4 to 6 per square depending on the size of the bulb (also some of my squares are bigger than 1x1 foot 😅)

Make a small hole at the appropriate spacing and drop in the bulb, make sure its the right way round with the root plate at the bottom cover and move on, hopefully within a week or two well be seeing shoots poking through the soil.

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Wastage

One thing I was impressed with was out of the three packs and hundreds of onions, shallots and garlic set this is the total wastage of damaged or rotten bulbs. Not bad at all. these were bought via Wilkos. Who stock some great things at cheap prices it's worth checking them out wilko.com

Well now that that's done, I need to free up some more space to plant in the garden so let's hope this fine weather holds until the weekend. If you haven't thought of growing garlic, shallots or onions your missing out and need to look into it. Still, plenty of time to get some in the ground.

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All the best

D.

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Posted from my blog with SteemPress : https://electronicgarden.co.uk/2019/02/27/growing-garlic-and-onions-in-2019/

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