Tuesday 22 May 2012

Tool of the month.



Well, with a bit of a change in the weather I was able to get out to the vegetable garden and do some tidying of the onion bed. This bed contains garlic that was planted in October, Radar onion sets that were also overwintered, and my saved shallots from last years bumper crop. The one thing onions dislike is competition from weeds, and it is easy to damage the bulb when hoeing with a regular hoe.


However,  this fantastic contraption is an oscillating hoe and a job that used to me an hour now takes 10 minutes. My very favorite garden tool at the moment.


The next genius tip i picked up last year, was to grow onions/leeks from seed in modules and then leave them sit on the top of bare soil, where they will happily root down through and not dry out too quickly.


When the time comes to plant them out into the allium bed, they can be lifted off the soil roots and all,


 


Pop em in a hole just over a hoe's width apart (5") so you can whizz your majic hoe around them later.





TA - DA threes new rows of onions and the Allium bed is full for this season.


Shallots starting to split into more shallots.


Garlic all grown from saved bulbs. We've been self sufficient in garlic for about 4 years.

Now i feel the need to really show off, this is an old photo (as you can see)


The last time i grew Radar onions I got first prize in our county's big agricultural show. 
Weren't they just beauties! Prizewinning money from this show pays for seeds and compost for the following year. Thrifty or WHAT!

Do you think 'Tool of the month' could be a regular feature? 


1 comment:

  1. Fab! I used to love going to the agricultural show when I was a kid, my husband always rolls his eyes when he hears the family story trotted out yet again about how I won a trophy for my prize winning sausage rolls! Your raised bed looks great, I wish I had one - our garden is mainly used as football pitch at the moment.

    Thanks for linking up!

    ReplyDelete

Thank you so much for commenting. It really makes my day. I have removed word verification to make it less hassle. Sure don't I know yer not a robot!