Onions, yes they really do push themselves apart [honest]

So, for the non believers.

I grow my onions in pinches in modules, and transplant module by module into their final position.

From here on in, I leave them to it.

One picture is of the onions as they are now [this season's] and the other is last seasons, which are ready for picking soon. You can take the largest one, and leave the smaller ones to carry on growing, if you do it carefully.

Lancashire Lad Pea

Three photos of the Lancashire Lad Pea. Flower, pod and pod with peas in.

Golden Sweet Yellow Podded Mange Tout

What a lovely plant!

I'm hoping to cross these with Clarke's Beltony Blue Peas and see what occurs, but couldn't resist taking this photo yesterday - these are ones at once of the schools that I am creating organic gardens in.

Onions and other stuff [but mainly onions]

These are shallots bought in Sainsbury's - they had 'grown in Leicestershire' on the pack so I thought 'what the heck'. They were put into root trainers and allowed to grow a good root system over winter and they are looking fab right now.
These are my overwintered Rossa Di Milano onions, the seeds were given to me by Piglet Willie off of the Vine...so I sowed some last year and held back about 12 onions to allow them to set seed for swapping. The onions themselves are my favourite - heart shaped and red and totally lush. So, I'm really glad that these made it through winter!



We have lots of winter sown onions, [pics already on earlier posts] ready to go in the ground. After a visit to an Amish Type community this week, I am trying to really shove the veg in and grown them much closer together this year so these are not being separated out but each module will be teased into a sort of line, and they will be grown pretty close together.


Lovely lovely Flax.

Beans

I put quite a few beans in to compost last Sunday to chit. After a couple of days in the greenhouse I brought them indoors as it was a tad chilly outside. I'm pleased to say that most of them look like this [above]. So I've put them into pots, root-trainers and toilet toll holders, as shown below.

Onions

So, I've taken a few photos in the greenhouse today. Firstly some onions. We put about 200 onions from sets out in the lottie this weekend; and were starting to worry about where to put this lot. As I'm growing so many beans this year, and we've manured so much - it doesn't leave alot of unmanured space for onions. Bear in mind we already had about 300 overwintering onions in; I'm guessing we will slot these in wherever we had a nook or indeed a cranny. P.S....there's another long tray of onions to add to this; I'd estimate about another 3-400 all in all on top of the ones already in their final position. I dread to think how many there REALLY are.

The top piccie shows the onions all sown on the same day for the 5 schools that I'm getting sorted. As you can see, it can't be my sowing technique or indeed the compost that has stopped these seeds from germinating. So, if they don't come up soon, I'm going to be writing to some seed companies asking for my money back! Wasters....

Bean Bed Preparation

As you can see from my past postings; I am growing lots of beans again this year. To be successful at growing beans you need to make the most of your space. So I use the 'Munty' frame which is taken from a chap on the Allotment Forum.

First, I've attached 4 vertical posts to the South Side of the bed. Then I dig a trench along the North Side of the bed.


Then the trench gets filled with anything organic; this year as we have so much manure - I've filled it with that.


Then the trench gets backfilled with the original soil. Our soil is clay - with 2 years now of organic being added. The Main ingredients of the organic are newspapers, cardboard, coffee grounds and sawdust [we get the last 2 free from St*rbucks and from our lottie neighbour who gets it from a sawmill for us].

Once the trench is backfilled I can continue making the frame. As I ran out of cable ties today - I'm showing a frame that I made last year for effect.

The beans are planted into the north side, in the trench. They grow up the twine, and over the canes and then carry on up the sloping twine towards the top of the south side frame.

This design means that you don't lose any space under the frame - which is often the case when you grow in wigwams or cross canes. Also, the beans all get sunlight as there is no shading. The frames aren't too tall to block out light from the bed behind - so everyone is a winner!!!