Medwyn Williams keeps an eye on his onions
Regularly check bulbs to make sure none have gone soft
There are some important routine jobs to do now, such as making sure my alliums are keeping well. By that I mean my large exhibition onions and my ‘Aristocrat’ shallots. The exhibition shallots are notorious keepers, with the necks and root plate succumbing to disease. They are all stored in my garage in mushroom boxes and I go through them quite often to remove any that have gone soft.
The onions that I’m keeping are those that were grown from pips I had from David Metcalfe last year. They really grew well for me after potting them into their final Autopot during late May using Canna Coco Professional growing medium. I experimented with the different Autopot sizes: 8 litres, 15 litres and 25 litres. The conclusion was that the 8 litre pot was a little too small and either of the other two would produce good onions.
Having planted the onions late, they still managed to achieve 53cm (1¾) in circumference but the amazing thing was the uniformity of the bulbs. From the 25 bulbs that I planted I could have easily staged four sets of five, that’s the beauty and consistency of growing them from bulbils. My intention now is to try and keep the onions that I harvested as cool and dry as possible prior to potting them up later in the year for producing seed.
I wrote some time ago of my intentions to build a concrete block wall around an area that adjoins one side of my glasshouse down the land to keep rabbits out. This is a good-sized plot with amazing soil, having had quite a lot of manure and spent peat worked into it over the years. I really thought I would have had the wall built by now, or at least started on it, however, unless we have some dry weather over the winter period the probability is that the wall will have to go on the back burner until 2021.
My new catalogue for the coming season has already been sent out to my regular customers, if you require one, email me on medwyn@medwynsofanglesey. co.uk or write to Medwyn’s, Llanor, Llanfairpwllgwyngyll, Anglesey, LL61 5RZ.
■ Why not follow me on Twitter throughout the season as I grow vegetables for my show displays – @medwynsofangles.