Checking the plot, everything looks good. The onions and garlic are all sprouting and growing. I hope they know what they are doing, else I could lose the lot in a frost!

The weather is bizarre this end of year. It is almost December and we still haven’t had a frost and the temperatures are more like early autumn! I’ve see blackcurrants and strawberries still, flowers and daffodil shoots! Everything is a bit confused.

Up at the plot, lots of the onion and some of the garlic have sprouted. I don’t know if they are supposed to and what will happen when the frost does come, do they think it is spring? The weeds are making a really come back effort in this weather. Much of the areas we dug have now got small weeds scattered every where. I am hoping they are just confused too and will get killed in the first frost. We should give it a rake and hoe over at some point, but worst case, I don’t think they will get established enough before winter really comes. My prediction is that winter will hit in February. I really don’t know what the result will be.

The one on the left is the Solent Wight and the other is Avignon Wight. Tasting a small piece of the Solent, it was definitely worth the effort, strong and yet sweet! I just need to figure out where on the plot they should go and get the in the ground. Remember the Solent Wight was bought classed for eating, which was cheaper than classed as ‘seed garlic’ for growing. Personally I can’t see that there could be a difference, but we’ll see if it all grows ok!

If this is the amount of cloves that comes from the average bulb, there should be no problem keeping some bulbs back to grow the following year!

The plot is not roughly 70% cleared and dug. Just a strip in the foreground and the top end to go. The overwintering onion sets have been planted. They took up roughly a 3-4 metre square area. I worry that I’ve planted them in the area of the worst soil. It was quite a pain digging space to plant them in the lumpy clay soil. I surrounded them with poles to mark them. It should rain all this week, so I’ll check them next weekend to see if they still look ok. I’ve never done onions like this before, so I’m not sure if there is anything particular I should have done to help them survive the winter.

The soil nearest the composting area is still quite full of weed roots, which is why I didn’t plant them there. However, it is much softer and looser and would have been better for them, if I had thought ahead.

I’ve always wanted to have sweet onions suitable for salads. I bought sweet pink onion seeds some time ago, but never got the right time or situation to try them. People growing onions from sets seem to have such an easy time, but they are mostly stuck to the same mass produced varieties. The thought is, can you grow your own onion sets and enjoy the benefits for variety from seed, but the easy of planting sets in spring?

Doing minimal research and using fairly old seed, I’ve sown (too much) seed in a try indoors.

The advice is to sow seed much earlier outdoors, or wait till the spring (but end up with smaller crop and the hassle of seeds). My theory is somewhere between the two, that I should be able to get some kind of set out of seeds indoors from now leading up to and over winter. If they bulb earlier enough, I can just pull them out as sets and dry them ready to plant when the weather allows in spring. If they take a long time, I’m sure I’ll have something transplantable by spring. The main risk is that they don’t bulb at all, that is something I will have to figure out when the time comes.

The plot still has some digging to do, which has to be done today at least enough to plant these tomorrow. The weather tomorrow (Sunday) is supposed to reach 18 degrees (22nd October!) and then rain the all next week. If we can get these in the ground by the end of tomorrow, all should be good.

The plot is 4m wide and the onions are supposed to be planted roughly 15cm apart. Could be 20-25 per row, 3 rows each…ish? 4m by 4m area, roughly will do. Have I gone over the top with onions?! And I’m growing more for spring, oops! That’s another post though.

I’ve always really liked the idea of growing my own garlic. Problem is, it’s never really worked. Maybe because I can’t bring myself to buy ‘planting garlic’, I mean look at it, it’s just garlic garlic.. I can buy garlic garlic from a supermarket, I don’t need to buy ‘special’ planting garlic do I? But does it make a difference,

So I bought large garlic bulbs from a deli and planted them. Now as it turns out nothing really grew well on that plot, but I believe to a certain extent I proved that it would grow (Previous Garlic Growing Results).

I realise now that we had a ‘Hardneck’ variety, which confused my at the time why the green stems were so stiff! The end result of that garlic experiment was though that the garlic was just not very tasty. In looking for tasty sounding varieties for our new plot, I’ve come to the conclusion I need to bite the bullet and pay the extra. However, not completely.. the website had buying growing garlic and eating garlic sections.  The growing garlic was much more expensive, but had a range of varieties.

I’ve bought two varieties, four bulbs each. ‘Solent Wight’ from their eating range, which is supposed to be a good all round and tasty

Our best garlic in terms of overall eating and keeping quality. Hard dense bulbs that exude a presence of their own. Long keeping – to April and beyond.

Elegant bouquet that retains its flavour during cooking. Large white, bulbs that are easy to plait. Most attractive garlic plaited and hung in the kitchen

and Avignon Wight from the growing range, which is supposed to produce really large bulbs.

Large, white softneck garlic, – produces largest bulbs of all garlic types. This is most vigorous and potentially the highest yielding garlic. Big fat cloves that can attain 80mm+ size.

Both are ‘Softneck’ varieties and so should be easier to plait and store longer. All being well, I would hope that I would be able to keep back some grown bulbs to plant again for the next year. Ensuring I don’t have to suffer the pain of paying so much for garlic, and hopefully begin to build up an adaptation to my soil.