I've never really been into gardening but this thread could start something...
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I've never really been into gardening but this thread could start something...
I must admit that I thought this thread would bore the tits off most people (and it probably does), and my personal quest for the 3lb onion is more likely than not to end in failure. However, if it ends up inspiring one or two to try and grow their own veg it will be well worthwhile. It's definitely far easier to just buy it from the supermarket (stocks permitting), but there is no satisfaction in doing that. My kids often mock me when I say at Sunday dinner "an hour ago that was still growing in the garden", but the taste of real fresh vegetables makes the effort of growing your own well worthwhile. I am nothing more than an enthusiastic amateur, and probably have more failures than successes, but it gives me a lot of pleasure over the summer watching something turn from a tiny seed into a healthy vegetable. If me and tarquin talked vegetables we would be best mates, but if we ever talked politics it might be very different!
Very disappointed that you are negative regarding the chances of achieving your “holy grail.” You have so many posters interested in your onions, that just like our hopes and expectations that Notts will gain promotion, we are relying on you to reach your 3lb target.
Had exactly the same in my bars Elite, before I bailed.....some of the nicest people ever over a pint, chat about Sport, women, quality of the ale, their ****ty day at work, speeding fines, agree or disagree not a problem, pissed up or not...BUT as soon as someone mentioned Maggie or the Miners Strike or the diminishing power of the Unions, you could literally see people getting ready to take sides.
Anyone self-employed or owned a local business v anyone from a mining background or on some form of benefits....and some of the stuff was pretty nasty....guys that 5 minutes ago were buying each other pints, were now threatening to "come outside and say that that you effing bleep-bleep".....after it had calmed down, it was "is it your round, or mine?"
Anyway......what happened to your onion pics on page 2......did they write in to NCM and demand they be removed, you took them without permission?
The seedling pics are still there on post #16, if you mean the finished article pic that was on another thread. As I'm sure you're aware this is a 9 month process from seed to onion, so there's nothing much to report apart from a couple of the more advanced ones have grown a third leaf. They just don't realise the pressure they are now under!
Seeing as it's looking a bit of a bleak few months, I would like to offer people like jackal who was considering giving gardening a go an ideal introduction - the runner bean. It's the one thing I've never had a failure with and only needs a few basics to start. Pop down to Wilko and buy a bag of compost, a pack of runner bean seeds (several varieties at Ģ1) and a few 8 foot canes. Save a few yoghurt pots or similar and in about a months time put some compost and a couple of seeds in them. Keep them watered and in a warm and light position and in a week or so they should start to sprout. Arrange 4 of your canes into a wigwam shape and tie them together at the top. Once the risk of frost has passed, stick a plant in the ground just inside each cane, then sit back and watch them climb. All they need is a bit of water in dry spells, and a bit of plant food when the beans start to appear. When they are two thirds of the way up the canes sow 4 or 5 seeds (in case one fails to germinate) directly into the soil in the gaps between the canes. This is a clever way to extend the growing season because when the indoor ones are nearing the end, the outdoor ones will be taking over. Pick the beans before they start to swell, the first ones are always the best. Leave a few at the end to swell and pick them when the pod goes withered and brown. Dry them indoors, and these are your free seeds for next year. Store them in an envelope in a cool dark place and repeat the process in April 2021. When they start to come, they come thick and fast, but are ideal for freezing to eat over the winter.
Trying to keep calm and stay off the Politics....here goes......all pics from last night
Completed the last of 5 raised beds, concrete steel-reinforced base using 6 metre reinforcing square tubes, cut into an a 4 metre and a 2 metre length....poured concrete, plus 2 levels of block (60 blocks)......dead trees and palm leaves, old clothes, boxes of magazines all in the base then build upwards using garbage dirt first, topped off with topsoil and animal manure scraped with a shovel from their resting areas.....30 to 40 buckets or barrow-loads per bed....liquid compost on top during planting.....1 year later, plant with onions, carrots, small fruit bushes (for shade) peas and beans for free nitrogen-fixing.....save all urine in plastic milk bottles, mix with water daily (10 to 1) and water daily.....DO NOT PULL WEEDS, cut them at the base with scissors or hooked blade (you need roots to stay in the soil, burrowing, dandelions, also edible, are perfect.......plant in sept or oct in tropics (cooler, but warm enough to germinate and grow).......result in March
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Pull a few carrots (feel around the top with fingers to guess at thickness, leave or replant tiddlers), a few peas (not bright green, darker moving towards brown, gently squeeze, need to be fat with large peas) a few onions with fat lush leaves and NO full seed-head (those we leave for next years seeds)
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Two of the 4 raised beds, 5 months old, rammed with onions (those seed heads are edible up to the point that you can see the white double-seeds through the outer skin, so is the central "scape" or runner which gets more woody and chewy as they age (like women!), discard central scape or leave to flower....watch the bees go crazy (I have my own hive behind the garage).....masses of carrots, peas which use the metal cages I cut from concrete reinforcing sheets (peas onion carrots and pomegranates, are all grown all from my own collected seeds), pomegranates are fast-growing here, those in this pic are flowering in 2nd year from seed, and I use as shade (trim off lower branches)....pomegranates are the green bushes in the middle of the onions with the bright red flowering seed heads....one of the things here that are completely pest-resistant (I use no chemicals at all, everything must survive on itīs own here)....also the gophers chewing the roots cannot kill the bushes, awesome
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Metal cages at the back of this pic, near the kitchen window are for tomatoes which grow like weeds if you get the locally-grown types. Bit behind with toms as I made a mistake last year trying a different kind which refused to ripen quickly enough and got hammered by pests....luckily found a plastic tub of 1 year-old seeds I saved a while back....phew.....will put up another pic in june or july of the cages, hopefully full.
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Your "an hour ago that was still growing in the garden" line reminds me of my late Grandad, who was a keen gardener and kept an allotment for many years. I ate very healthily as a child thanks in no small part to him, but of course it's only when you look back years later that you truly appreciate it. It's not just the giant onions that can bring a tear to the eye!
Of course if stuff keeps disappearing off the supermarket shelves then growing your own produce becomes an ever more sensible idea, even if it's a somewhat long-term strategy for most veg. Cress grows quickly though! ;)
OK let's cook dinner....we are in isolation so the more from the garden the better.
Not as big as Elite's monsters, but fast-growing and everything (including the smallish seed heads are edible)....gently knock off the dirt from the roots back into the hole it came from (that soil is packed with "good guys" hence a superb onion....put the microbes back)....there should be 2 loose, overlapping THIN skins on this size of onion, overlapping, gently peel them off with your fingernail or the back of a small knife and you almost don't need to wash the onion itself, cut off the roots as close to the onion as possible with handy garden scissors, drop roots and 2 skins back into onion hole, remember the "good guys"
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I missed a tiny bit of dirt, when skinning, on the right of that onion, so it needs a dunk AFTER (try to keep cleaning water clean as these are going straight in for cooking) scissoring off the roots......when we've finished the water goes back in the onion or carrot holes.
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Now our onion has been dunked and hand-washed....scissor off any funky-looking tips (frost damage, sun-scald) and cut into 1-inch sections working towards the onion....basically bunch up the 7 or 8 leaves in your fist and cut through them all 1-inch at a time
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Cut off carrot leaves (edible but woody, not for me though) and tips, DO NOT PEEL, scrub with nail brush and use back of a knife for stubborn cracks or holes, we are cooking these whole for mashing later.....shell the peas by "unzipping" and pulling the end where the flower was, use fingernails to unpop into pan, 15 pods is 60 peas on average....again these empty pods can be boiled, liquidised and strained for a soup (I put them back in the soil for the worms).
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Total time from pulling vegs, to cooking is now approaching 15 minutes (any longer and they will start to wilt and look like store-bought veg. *****ly important, these vegs are nutrient dense, growing healthily and bursting with good stuff, don't pick them in the morning if you are eating at 6pm), so a quick slurp of beer from under the palm tree into the kitchen and half fill with water (we are steaming them) with a semi-tight-fitting glass lid (I like to see them cooking as I drink 2 more pints ie 30 to 40 minutes).....total cost so far is zero for the food, which means we can buy more beer!!....while the vegs are cooking on the right (cook until whole carrots are 80% soft, pierce with fork) the vegans will need to add cooked beans which I pre-cook weeks before (a large pan-full of a kilo of beans, $1, soaked overnight, drained and refilled with clean water and cooked on the lowest gas flame possible for 3 to 4 hours, the bean juice is delicious and is frozen in portions along with the beans)....the left hand frying pan is for the next stage where I am layering in some tuna or sardines, either the full tuna or half the sardines.....time for two more beers!