Grow Your Own Magazine

Got a tip from one of the older allotmenteers on our site the other day, he was told by a champion onion grower that to maximise the bulb swelling and growing on your onions to 'finger' them once they start to swell!

Basically you run a finger around the swelling bulb in dry weather to break up the soil a bit and allow them to swell easier, he said he'd tried it and got great results, has anyone else come across this technique? Any ideas if it'll work, any thoughts or comments?

I've tried it with some of the overwintering onions after he told me, but havent been to the plot for a couple of days, so havent been able to check the progress of the ones that have been fingered, but will do so and let you know if there's any difference!

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Blessings
Suzanne (aka Mrs Dobby)

'Garden naked - get some colour in your cheeks'!

The Dobby's Pumpkin Patch - a blogspot work in progress!
Last updated 5th November2008 - new piccies!

It sounds feasible anyhoo.

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Happy Gardening,
Shirley

http://www.honeyjukes.co.uk

Indeed it sounds sensible.

I have three onions beds, I incorporated loads of compost in one of the beds so the soild is nice and loose. Two other beds are in rather sandy soil, but with less compost incorporated, so it "caps" a bit more readily.

See if you can guess which bed/beds has the swellest onions...

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A simple dude trying to grow veg.

http://haywayne.blogspot.com/ - Minor update - 10th November

http://tickers.baby-gaga.com/p/dev036pr___.png

I do this with my shallots to give them room to spread - top idea though - esp for those f us with hard clay soil!

I think I will have a try later on, once the rain has been and gone

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Andrea :wavehello

http://www.growfruitandveg.co.uk/gra...logs/zazen999/

moon trials completed:
tomatoes
[46% increase in crop per seed sown and 10% increase in crop per plant]

currently underway:
calabrese
garlic

Hey, Mrs Dobby,
Any news on the results of giving the onions the finger?

My onions were all small and tasteless this year - I blame the 'washout' by the buckets of rain we've had.

It sounds as if it's worth trying with garlic too, I'll be out first thing in the morning to give it a go.

I'd love to hear from you on whether you think it helped. Thanks.

Any part of the onion in contact with the soil, apart from the roots will be susceptable to fungal basal rot!

Round here, pot leeks are grown above ground and not 'collared' for the same reason. The length of white is dictated by the 'strain'!

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My Majesty made for him a garden anew in order
to present to him vegetables and all beautiful flowers.- Offerings of Thutmose III to Amon-Ra (1500 BCE)

Hi MTFrannie!

Well, if you look at the piccies on the VVS 3 onions, you tell me! Seemed like it did help, tho whether thats cos we thought it would or whether the ones we fingered did better I'm not entirely sure, but anything that stands a chance of working has to be worth a go!

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Blessings
Suzanne (aka Mrs Dobby)

'Garden naked - get some colour in your cheeks'!

The Dobby's Pumpkin Patch - a blogspot work in progress!
Last updated 5th November2008 - new piccies!

Mrs D, I've just been reading your blogspot and am speechless with admiration at the tidiness and abundance of your allotments. I'm just working on a garden and the most flourishing growth is in the weeds!

It was great to see your photos - keep snapping please.

Logic says that if the soil is loose then the bulbs have more chance of swelling. My Garlic was a case in point this year. The soil is clay but has had LOADS of humus added last autumn and the garlic this year was huge, The best Iv'e grown.

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Gardening requires a lot of water - most of it in the form of perspiration. Lou Erickson, critic and poet

Hi MTF!

Thanks for the kind words re the blog and the allotments! Have to say that the piccies are taken to show it in the best light, we've still plenty of weeds, just that I try not to let them show on the piccies! lol!!

Next year we're gonna use a lot more cardboard mulches as it definitely seems to keep the weeds down a lot, making it much easier to keep weed free and tidy!

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Blessings
Suzanne (aka Mrs Dobby)

'Garden naked - get some colour in your cheeks'!

The Dobby's Pumpkin Patch - a blogspot work in progress!
Last updated 5th November2008 - new piccies!

Leonard Nimmoy eat your heart out!

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My Majesty made for him a garden anew in order
to present to him vegetables and all beautiful flowers.- Offerings of Thutmose III to Amon-Ra (1500 BCE)

Very impressed Mrs Dobby. I do love neat and I adore straight edges. Probably says something very sinister about me and certainly OH thinks I'm weird but we're all different eh? Your allotment is a work of art.
No wonder the camera is aways out. Great stuff. Sanjo