Autumn Planting Onions - 4th Oct 2019

Out into the veg garden again . I didn't really feel like doing it ,  but taking down the Runnerbean frame just had to be done .
 Back in the Spring I coppiced my Hazel and Willow ....and had taken the Willow by mistake to use for the Runnerbean frame ..only realising after I had fixed it all up ......and planted out  the young bean plants ...and then couldn't be bothered to do it all again .

            I,m trying to be a "no-dig" gardener ....but these had to be dug out .
                                               One hell of a job !

 Look at those roots !  I have nowhere to plant these so they will now be left to dry out and eventually become kindling for the fire .
                  Unless you know anyone who would like them !

 The French-bean frames are fine , I used Hazel for them , some have dried out and will be cut up  for kindling and some I can use again .
 I,m going to grow Sweetpeas here on this wigwam and will be sorting out my seeds to do this later on today .
 I harvested a few more beans from them yesterday , I think I will just sow the Sweetpea seeds in amongst the the roots of these beans and keep the netting onto keep the bunnies out .
 We are forecast heavy rain tomorrow to get  them all germinating fast in the still warm earth .

 What I really needed to do ,  was plant out all my onion sets .
 I had bought double the amount of them this year , to share with my daughter .
I like to start them off in modules...it is worth the extra effort ,to get a good root system growing away before planting them out . I have found that I get  much stronger , healthier plants which grow away faster and also with a better root system the  birds are less likely to pull them out ; they mistake the onion sets little shoots for worms . Some people cut off the new shoots......if that works for you fine ..... but ...I don't do that , poor little onion sets need those leaves to photosynthesise . Anyway this works  for me !

 So I gently planted them all , about 200 of them into the still warm earth .

 I found a bit  more space over in the brassica bed where I had harvested some of my Brussels-sprouts  the other day . Sprouts now frozen and in freeflow packs in the freezer . There are still more Sprouts to come , and I,m much happier now that we are seeing less of the Cabbage White Butterflies as Autumn is now much more noticeably approaching .  ( no frosts though )
 Further up country I think frosts are beginning to happen , we rarely get frost here .

 So I planted more Onion sets into this bed . This bed was heavily manured last Winter ....and the Runnerbeans will have fixed nitrogen into the earth in the other onion bed .
  It is so important to give back to the Earth and I always make sure to do so .

                   Back aching and I still had quite a few onion sets left over .

So these I planted into the Veg-Trug , in amongst the Lettuces , Coriander and Dill . I have covered this with Environmesh just to give a bit more protection from the wind and cold .

 The big storm Lorenzo just brushed past us here in the far South West of  Cornwall . It is very warm and humid  ....but there are gloomy rain threatening clouds overhead ......which for me is good ....meaning that I wont have to water the onion sets in !

                                Very happy to have got this job done !

 I quickly threw over a spare cloche to deter the wild birds ...but once they,ve settled in they wont need any cloche .
 So now a more relaxing day .....sorting out my Sweetpea seeds  :)
   Wishing you all a beautiful weekend ! x