Egyptian Onions and Amish ones .

This morning was spent sorting out some Egyptian Walking  Onions for a friend on the forum Allotments4all  ....I have learnt so much from everyone on this wonderful website.

Actually these are the more sought after ones ..the Amish Egyptian Walking Onions.
There are several different varieties ..I also have the ordinary white one .
The Amish ones are red. It produces bulbils on the top of the flower shoots ..which eventually fall over and deposit the bulbils some distance away from the mother plant.
I usually leave them for a bit , then when I see a few little white roots appearing , I separate them and replant them....some I leave together if it looks like they might be damaged if I pull them apart ..or sometimes I just leave the whole little clump of them on the surface to put down roots and separate them the following year .

Yes they are edible ! Bulbs and shoots .... I know you can grow bigger and better onions ..but with these..you know that you will always have some on the go .
Ancient little creatures these ! If anything grows on Mars ...it will be this odd looking thing !

Although quite tough ..I always move mine into a sheltered zone if we get a very cold winter. They die back and come up again in the Spring .
 When they get bigger you can plant them out or grow them in large pots as I do .

   They do have flowers too , just not so many .... and this little bee is loving it !
             If it is good enough for the bees , then it is good enough for me .

Sweet Peas ,Sparrow Hawks and Shopping Bags .

The weather is changing , so today I am rushing to weed out this bed and finish planting up the remaining onion sets . My friends Derek and Moira gave me a huge envelope full of Poppy seeds at church this morning... well , after filling that wheelbarrow full of weeds..I raked the whole lot in ..so last year , I created the White Foxglove Orchestra....next year , this will be The Poppy Parade ! There will also be a few white foxgloves and that wigwam should hopefully be a delightful display of fragrant  sweet peas .
The green grids that you can see, are what I use to cover the onion sets , just till they get their roots down. The little shoots look like worms to the birds , who pull them up and toss them away in disgust ! lol !
I will also be planting some Primroses along the front of this bed  , including some delightful  pink  primulas  that my good blogging friend  Stasher ,  kindly sent to me last year : )
I still have some white foxglove seeds left over if anyone would like some ?
 We can all have everything we want in our gardens , if we all ......share  .

I have been thrilled to see this handsome bird . He is quite bold and visiting even when I am working out in the garden . I think he might be a Sparrow Hawk ..maybe someone can tell me for sure . It is much bigger than our usual Kestrel .
  The fields around us have just recently been cut , I think this is why he has been attracted here .The Buzzards and my Ravens have been chasing him away . This is their  territory ! I also hope that my regular Blackbirds will be keeping out of sight of him !
  The Swallows ...well I have been watching them over the last few days ....I didn,t see any today .. so maybe they have gone .
The weather is changing and the wind is really picking up as I write this .
 Rain is forecast for the whole week ahead ....which is good for my onion sets and sweetpea seeds .
Goodbye to plastic bags ! Now we must all make an effort to remember to take our own bags with us when shopping .  I wish that shops would give their customers brown paper carrier bags like they do in America .

                            Tired old aching bones me.....off to put my feet up .....