Onion stew

I've had my first real set-back of the year, one of my Red Baron onions (grown from sets) in the raised wooden bed going to seed. I do find this variety is rather prone to bolting and I've pulled the offending plant up so as not to encourage any others to do the same, although I don't doubt it will be the last. The recent drops in temperature have no doubt caused this but hopefully I'll still be able to harvest a fair few specimens.

I'm sure before the season is out there'll be other problems to contend with and like other seasons some crops will flourish and others will disappoint. Very often it's a crop that you thought you had nailed and have taken your eye off the ball with. No two seasons are the same which is a good thing as you'd give up growing some vegetables otherwise! Thrips used to be the bane of my greenhouse onion crops, the tiny little insects devouring the newly emerging shoots right in the growing point of the plant. When the leaves grew bigger the tiny little nibbles looked like thousands of larger nibbles that seriously weakened your plant and affected the ultimate size of the bulb therefore. Thanks to regular squirtings of Dynamec i'm pleased to report I seem to have this particular pest under control. But you have to make sure you do spray it right into the centre of the plants where the brighter coloured new leaves are emerging, gently holding them apart slightly to make sure the chemical gets in between them. If you spray over the outer leaves in general it will have no effect whatsoever, and will be akin to asking Diarmuid Gavin to talk sense about gardening.

I've also been asked about the following problem with onions, whereby roots grow upwards between the layers of bulb tissue, causing bulging and rendering them useless for showing, although you can strip some outer layers until you get to the offending root if it's not too far in. Dave Thornton reckons it's down to the growing media being too compacted as he says that a plant's roots are 'positively geotrophic', whatever that means as the university educated cunt does like to show off to me with a few long words now and again. Another theory i've been offered is that the plants might have been given too much feed that throws them out of kilter somewhat. Any other ideas are gratefully received, although I have to say it's not a common problem by all accounts and my onions still appear to be growing magnificently well, although I am shading them during the day whilst we have this mini-heatwave.

So let the problems keep coming but above all stay positive, enjoy your gardening, learn from any setbacks and put them in the memory bank for next season. And be careful when walking about the plot at dusk, especially if you've had a drink. I've cut back on my alcohol consumption this year so that I have a clear head at all times, having walked over a couple of trays of onions last season that i'd put outside for hardening off. To be fair I was absolutely wankered so I got off lightly with just that!