Delight of Spring Onions

Yesterday I decided to look into what may be in a few pots that I planted up last year. As I didn't label them, which is always a big mistake, I had thought I'd planted both Spring Onions and Leeks into these pots, but none of the growing plants ever looked like Leeks.

                                                        Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: 08 July 2012

So, I decided to investigate and dig into these pots and see what I actually had and to my surprise I had three pots of Onion (Spring) White Lisbon Winter Hardy, 22 in total. Not sure what happened to the Leeks, they may have died off, but these looked great.
 

                                                        Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: 08 July 2012

And they came in very handy last night as we used them in our Chinese crispy shredded beef we had for dinner, very fresh and delicious, another must have for next years garden.

Weird Garlic

I've been harvesting the Early Purple Wright Garlic this weekend and I may have left them a little too long in the ground or maybe done something wrong along the way. On realising a lot of other people have been harvesting these, I decided to pull them up and found that most of them were slightly deformed.

                                         Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: July 2012

When I say deformed, I mean even though they have grown to a reasonable size, they don't seem to have fully formed into bulbs, as a lot of the cloves are sticking off the outside of the main bulb, but the cloves have fully formed so I'm sure they will be fine to use.

                                                   Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: July 2012

I've left the bulbs to dry out over the mini-greenhouse, these will be plaited and hung in the kitchen for when I need to use them, I may even try and see if I can save a couple of bulbs to keep for planting for next years harvest.

Harvested: Garlic & Onions

Over the last few weeks I've been harvesting the Radar Onions I've been growing since October last year. I started with pulling up around six for my first batch, then nine in my second batch and the rest I picked today.

                                                   Photo: Laura  Lunt  Date: July 2012

At the same time as planting the Radar Onions, I also planted some Early Purple Wright Garlic and as with the onions, I've been busy harvesting the rest of these today, and hanging them for drying out.

                                         Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: July 2012

The mini-greenhouse has been very handy to use as a dryer, but this wasn't big enough for all of them, so I had to use a metal hanger to hold a few of the smaller onions. Hopefully I can leave all of  these for a week or two and then plait up to keep and save for when I need to use them.

From what I've read Garlic is fine to leave in the house after plaited at room temperature, but Onions are meant to be left in a shed or garage at a cooler temperature which I don't have, so I may have to find an alternative way to keep them.

Courgettes Two Types

It didn't take long for the Courgettes to start growing, once sown. Within a week two of these were popping out of the propagator soil, I have one Courgette 'Tondo di Piacenza' which is a round variety and one Courgette 'All Green Bush', which is a normal long variety.

                                         Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: June 2012

These have now been planted outside, as I lost a couple of the Strawberry plants, I've placed the round Courgette variety in here and potted another one up in another individual pot.

                                                    Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: June 2012

Brussels Sprouts Not Lost

For a while I thought I'd lost the Brussels Sprout plants I've been growing, they seemed to have suffered a lot while I was away on holiday for a week, but it looks like I may have actually had a few survive, which I re-planted up a few weeks ago.

I originally grow so many that I gave a pot full to my mum.

                                                                                  Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: June 2012

In total I managed to save four of the plants, one I've planted on its own and the other three in a long pot, they are very small at the moment, but hopefully they'll grow and I'll have some sprouts ready to eat at Christmas.

                                                                  Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: June 2012

First Strawberries of the Year

Last year I created some Runners from the 'Alice' Strawberry plants I got from Thompson & Morgan, see blog Strawberry Runners for Beginners. The new Runners were left in my mini-greenhouse to over winter and around April they were planted up into hanging baskets.

                                            Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: June 2012

Unfortunately I started with four plants and lost two while I was a way on holiday at the end of May. But within a few weeks the others started to show some Strawberries coming through and this week I managed to pick the first four which were ripe to eat... delicious.

                                                   Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: July 2012