Green Onions and rain...

[Iceni]

Our first real spring dealing with our south facing sloping veggie garden - the story unfolds - well it actually gets wet feet but that is out of our control. How are your veggie patches doing this spring - have you confounded the locals or joined in their worship of Rustica and 'planting by the moon' as we have.

Green Onions - new to us really except for 'spring onions' for salad use. Well last autumn I posted that we had bought 50 seedlings for planting out. Our local markets were full of them and as we had just arrived permanently and had two raised beds thought we should make a start.

Well the onions have survived the wind, -10 degree nights and non stop rain and we now have about 47 nicely growing onions which are getting decent bulbs. I am as surprised as anyone else as the weather is still dire. We planted another lot a couple of weeks ago for summer onions. Now our farmer (whose land surrounds us) has become interested in the 'mad Englishwoman' who plants peas in pots for later planting out. We showed him our garlic and shallots and said we were going to get some onion sets. Don't do that was his reply - you cannot grow and store onions around here, there is something in the soil - they rot. Even shallots are dodgy. Well we planted the garlic and shallots and the garlic stormed away and the shallots are limping. No onion sets for us.

Part of our land is still under water and we have showers forecast for the foreseeable future - it was not like this last year. The locals keep having 'when can we plant our potatoes' meetings and the general consensus is the next two weeks but not in rows to be earthed up - have to use a dibber and then cover the planted spud quickly with soil before the water pours in - rather the way Hugh F-W describes in his River Cottage Cook Book. Everything is so late - the broad beans have not broken the ground but they are alive and viable - I was so worried I checked.

One thing the rain has benefited are the cassis cuttings I took in the autumn when I planted a cassis bush. Again the 'Mad Englishwoman' and her not wishing to waste anything. I cut the bush back and stuck 20 cuttings into the raised bed - and guess what - I have 20 small cassis bushes. Some we will keep to put in a fruit cage but the rest will be given away.

I will be able to plant out my peas in about 10 days when I plant seeds at the same time - will give me an extended season. I am starting to think that I will have to start the fennel and beans off the same way unless we get a dramatic improvement in the weather - and a real disaster, the asparagus is starting to come up in the bed I 'heeled' them into whilst waiting for the main bed to dry out. The bed is wetter than ever but I fear we are going to have to try to plant them this week regardless. Raised bed method and not the modern way as they hate wet feet.

The lettuce and rocket seem to come up in a couple of days in this cold wet weather - lets hope they don't rot off when they need warmth and not cold rain. Still not above 1 at night - but then we are 1500 feet up! We chose the land because we wanted to grow veggies and I have this feeling that it will all come as a glut at once - never mind, the huge new freezer will cope.

All in all a dire Spring so far, but we have green onions if nothing else

Di

http://www.iceni-it.co.uk

[Patf]

Di - an interesting posting. Some things the same with us - Gers - and some different. The main difference is that we followed someone's advice to plant the peas and broad beans out in November, while the earth was still warm. The shoots appeared 3 weeks later and now they are fully grown and covered with flowers. They need propping up. Our green onions are also doing well - planted in October and now edible. Last year we planted onion sets and most of them rotted away. You learn as you go along , what does well and what's doomed from the start. Pat.