Friday 4 September 2009

Forward planning & other stuff!

Welcome back to Reads Allotment Retreat.
I just want to start by saying "Thank you" to all the new visitor's to the blog, especially the one's who have left comments. It's nice to know that in writing the blog, we are reaching an appreciative audience. You will notice that we have expanded our blog list considerably of late, this mostly down to requests from other garden blogger's around the world, and also a few that we have come across recently.

Furthermore, we are starting to compile a new blog - Reads Recipes - where we plan to list as much info on what we make as we can (jams, chutneys, relishes etc) from all our produce, be it grown or foraged! Please bear with us on this, as we get the ball rolling!

With regard to forward planning - we've been shopping :
We popped to our local Wilkinson's store yesterday, and came away with some sets for the allotment. Not sure really how the prices compare to elsewhere, it's just that we happened upon them when looking for something else! First up we have a bag of 50 Red Onion (v.Red Baron) sets, which can be planted out late autumn. These will provide an early crop (May - June) whilst my main onion crop are still in full growth.



Next up we have this bag of "White" onion sets. Again there's 50 in the pack. The only downside is that there is no specific label on the packs, and apart from the first item, i cant remember the variety. (If you're reading this and know the variety, let me know please !).






And finally, there's a pack of 3 Garlic Bulbs. We forgot to plant any of these last year and have been begrudgingly paying for it all summer ! I aim to plant the garlic soon after the first frost. I read on the RHS website, that the continued "frosting" of overwintering garlic, helps the cloves to grow into strong new bulbs. This always seem to work and act as a good time planner for when to plant out.




Regular readers will know that we're not big fans of onion sets, but at the very least we'll be able to harvest these early in the summer. We plan to grow our main onion crop from seed (v. Bedfordshire Champion) , as these always perform well, outgrowing the sets by far. Also, this variety is not susceptible to neck rot.

That's all for now, but keep your comments coming, we love reading them!

Take care all and enjoy your gardening / growing.

TTFN

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

so you plant your garlic to grow over the winter???? I tried to grow garlic once but had no look and as a huge lover at garlic it's something I would like to be successful with.

As for the buying..i always go to wilkinsons!! :-)