Oniongate and garlic

As Oniongate rages, I've had to start digging the crop to try to salvage some of the bulbs before the rot sets in. Around a third had to go straight onto the skip, the rest is thick-necked but edible for now.

Onions from the allotment didn't store too well last year either, according to some plot holders. The jury's still out on what went wrong, but I'm guessing early planting coupled with wet conditions are prime suspects; aided and abetted by close planting.

In other news, there's success in the same beds where the garlic's also ready to be lifted. Again, there seems to be some kind of rule of thirds in operation.

For while two-thirds of it has plump, solid bulbs, the remainder has either failed to develop, or the bulbs have begun to divide, like the sample on the left.

This is probably another symptom of wet weather. We had a lot of rain spread over several days a week or so back. The plants also have  rust on them, but like last year's crop, this does not seem to affect the bulbs.

 I didn't keep a note of which variety they were, but one group of hardnecks does not seem to have formed bulbs yet, so I've left them in the ground to see how they develop.

Now what to do with the harvested crop? I've decided to try drying bulbs in different places, rather than just string them all up in the greenhouse this year.

Some are in the greenhouse. Some are in the polytunnel, near a mesh door where it's a little airier. Some are in the shed, where it's cooler. Some are outside, which is where you're apparently supposed to dry them off.

I didn't dare hang the ones with rust anywhere near other crops, so have cut the leaves off to within an inch of the bulb for those going in the 'poly and GH.

I wish I'd kept a note of which was which. The one which did very well, with white skin is Marco - the variety you get in supermarkets, but with noticeably bigger bulbs.

The others are a mix of soft and hardnecks including a red-ish one which has performed a little inconsistently.

Finally, there was an extra spicy kind I grew in tubs whose stem has barely reached the thickness of a pencil despite being planted in October with most of the rest.

Garlic remains one of my favourite crops to grow, mainly because you can more or less leave it to get on with it. While it's relatively expensive in the shops, you seldom see more than the same white variety, while if you grow your own there are more than a dozen to try.

It seemed to keep well last year, with the last stored bulb lasting until the middle of February.

This year I was aiming for 60 bulbs - ie just over one a week to see if it would keep until the next crop's ready - and it looks as if we might just about get that as long as the rest doesn't keel over.