Medwyn Williams has just the tonic for his onions
I’m hoping my new trick of using sparkling water will pay off!
In my younger days as an exhibitor I used to avidly follow the gentleman who preceded me writing this column, Bill Taylor. Bill always used to stress that with large onions you had to concentrate on getting as many leaves as possible on them before the longest day. He believed from that time onwards, as the days shortened, the onion would start to bulk up and stop producing more leaves.
It’s certainly true that the more leaves you have, the greater your chance of a large onion. However, with the advent of artificial lighting, the whole scenario has completely changed, with the onions now putting on weight far earlier than years ago.
Peter Glazebrook, a world record onion grower, in April 2014 had an onion with 16 leaves and must have already measured about 40cm (16in) in circumference. Conversely, I remember very well years ago a top class onion grower in North Wales who used to stage beautiful onions at August shows measuring 40cm (16in) round and, what’s more, he was winning with them! That’s how much onion growing has moved on.
I’ve heard lately that one grower is now watering his onions with tonic water so that the plants get the advantage of the carbon dioxide which forms the sparkle in the liquid. The increasing concentration of carbon dioxide increases photosynthesis, spurring on plant growth. Personally, I can think of a much better use for the product – such as in my gin! However, as a bit of fun and an experiment I’m watering three of my onions with sparkling water as and when they need watering.
I was a little late starting off with this experiment, only giving them their first watering on May 19 with sparkling water. I’ve six large onions growing on a bench in my tunnel in 30 litre pots, the other three onions will be watered as normal.
It’s a bit of fun, but who knows what could happen?