EXTENDING THE SEASON WITH ONIONS

From sowing to harvesting to storing, home-grown onions are something you can have all year round.

- Martin Fish

Bulb onions are just one member of the large allium family and they have been grown in gardens as a food source for centuries. They form part of our staple diet and can be used in so many ways in the kitchen all year round.

It's thought onions derived from wild species growing in central Asia and over time have been hybridised and crossed to produce the onions that we know today.

The onions that we grow in our veg plots are biennial and if allowed to grow naturally produce a bulb in year one and in the second year would flower, produce seed and die. As it's the bulb that we want, we grow them as annuals and harvest at the end of their first growing season.

SOWING AND GROWING

Onions can be grown using two methods and both will produce good crops. Traditionally, they were grown from seed, and seed catalogues still supply a good range of onion seed that can be sown in autumn, late winter or spring, depending on the type of onions you are growing.

Onion sets are also readily available and are a convenient way to grow onions. The sets are produced by specialist growers from seed and then treated and stored over winter ready for spring planting. Again, these can be spring or autumn planted depending on the type of onion.