Onion crop from last year still in perfect condition for eating

Country Notebook

WHEN it comes to vegetable gardening I generally don’t know my onions.

I have grown a range of fruit and veg for many years in a series of beds with mixed success. Some do well – courgettes in particular, and beans. Other crops, including tomatoes and soft fruits, are very hit and miss.

The weather conditions are obviously a factor, as are the predations of pests. When it is wet, which on west Dartmoor it invariably is, a squadron of slugs descend. Birds manage to break into the fruit cages and strip the berries and our dog once motored down a vegetable bed munching through an entire row of newly-planted organic pak choi (who knew he had such sophisticated tastes!).

As the weather warms and thoughts turn to spring planting for this year, we always weigh up what has worked in the past and what we enjoy eating. Broad beans may do well, but there is only so much of them we can stomach, and while potatoes are a joy to dig up, for all the effort one might as well buy them given they are cheap as chips.

However, salad varieties are cost effective, as are cutting flowers and herbs, along with posh varieties of vegetables for interest (forgetting the pak choi debacle).

One of the problems is always the fact that so much comes at once. Weeks of tending and then suddenly a glut, followed by the challenges of storage. This year, however, I am still eating one crop from 2020. The apples have all eventually rotted and the potatoes are now sprouting in their bags, but the onions stored in a dry box of wood shavings are as good as new.

We have never enjoyed such a decent onion crop as last year, and I’m amazed the harvest is still going strong months later. Definitely worth another go in 2021.