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Post by templeton on Jan 4, 2014 8:06:45 GMT -5
I've got piles, and wondering what to do with them. Had a spare bed last autumn, and in a fit of desperation, and my crazy desire to not let anything I've grown die, filled a 5 metre bed, which are now heading up. Given this (mis guided) propensity to not cull, been wondering how to pass the buggers along. ( note for NH readers - one of the quirks of Antipodean English allows references to bugger and buggery to be used in informal, but still polite use as a very mild expletive - I was in my mid 20's before i understood the literal meaning! I wonder what this says about our convict past.)
T
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Post by richardw on Jan 4, 2014 12:19:58 GMT -5
I've got piles, and wondering what to do with them. Had a spare bed last autumn, and in a fit of desperation, and my crazy desire to not let anything I've grown die, filled a 5 metre bed, which are now heading up. Given this (mis guided) propensity to not cull, been wondering how to pass the buggers along. ( note for NH readers - one of the quirks of Antipodean English allows references to bugger and buggery to be used in informal, but still polite use as a very mild expletive - I was in my mid 20's before i understood the literal meaning! I wonder what this says about our convict past.) T Not sure what our excuse would be though. Back to the onions,ive removed so many of the little buggers that Koanga will end up getting bugger all...but oh well...if they dont like it,they can go to buggery......where ever that is.... |
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Post by steev on Jan 5, 2014 22:09:36 GMT -5
Gee, T; sorry to hear about your piles; banding is recommended.
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Post by templeton on Jan 6, 2014 0:35:51 GMT -5
Gee, T; sorry to hear about your piles; banding is recommended. Best giggle I've had all day... T |
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Post by richardw on Jan 6, 2014 13:59:00 GMT -5
 hey, well spotted steev
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Post by steev on Jan 7, 2014 0:51:43 GMT -5
The mind wanders in free association; all it takes is a word to set it off. Sometimes it's really a PITA...
What were we discussing? Piles? Really? Imagine that!
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Post by raymondo on Jan 27, 2014 19:23:56 GMT -5
Here are some of the walking onions I harvested the other day. Still have quite a few in the garden yet to harvest.  And here is a walking onion flower head with ripening fruits. I removed the bulbils, well, most of them, when I noticed flowers. It seems to have worked though it's early days.  |
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Post by templeton on Jan 27, 2014 19:54:40 GMT -5
Ray,
I've got 4 different lines growing - some of your flowering ones, some of your topsetters, some from a friend, and my originals. All of them apart from mine are bulbing and look like stopping for the season. Looking very potato onion like. I'm wondering if its a cultivation thing. Mine which are growing in the same bed about 6 inches away are powering on, not looking like setting basal bulbs. I'll post some pics later.
The seedling topset from my last year's topset de-bubliling experiment is getting even larger. And my original topsets are also flowering, and i might have one or two seeds. Did the de-bulbing thing again, but not very stringently.
T
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Post by richardw on Jan 28, 2014 13:27:18 GMT -5
Looking successful Ray.
It looks like i'll have little or no luck getting seed from my line of tree onions,did heaps of bulbil removal and hand pollinating but 99% of the clumps have shut down before any seed pods could form,but ive got one single stem thats still green and has two small seed pods that hopefully may mature
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Post by richardw on Jan 28, 2014 16:26:33 GMT -5
 Pleased with the size of the base onion though  |
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Post by richardw on Jan 30, 2014 2:41:48 GMT -5
Thinking today while harvesting the last of the tree onions, what happens if i was to replant the bottom onions which ive never done,do they divide up?do they grow bulbils?has anyone tried.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jan 30, 2014 9:50:41 GMT -5
I regularly replant the bulbs. They grow great. Divide up. Grow bulbils. etc... Because the bulbs are larger than bulbils they grow faster. I get an earlier harvest in the spring by replanting the bulbs than if I started in late summer with bulbils.
My walking onions are currently frozen under a sheet of icy snow. We're in the midst of a spring-like rains, so within about 6 weeks I expect that to melt and I can start harvesting the walking onions a week later. This is their 2nd year in the current bed, so they will come on robustly!!!
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Post by richardw on Jan 30, 2014 12:13:29 GMT -5
Your type of walking onions are certainly tough buggers Joseph,dont know how mine would go being left in the garden all winter as its not icy snow that would test them but more the very wet conditions i get. If you reckon that replanted bulbs grow bulbils earlier then maybe that might help me have a better chance of getting the flowers to set seed, i'm going to try that but what i will do is plant some before winter and some at the end and see which does best. Yesterday i left one clump of bulbs in the ground,it has only one single stem with four maturing seed pods on it,but i dont know if they will mature in time as the stem is starting to turn yellow,fingers crossed they it can hang in there a bit longer,all the other stems that i removed the bulbils from dyed up before the flowers could set seed,so,i realy do have a walking onion type thats going to be extremely difficult to get seed from,if it all. An old garden said to me many years ago to grow onions in the same ground every year,ive now been growing my tree onions in the same bed for 6 years so maybe he was right as they are certainly getting bigger each year,though selection must play a part also.  |
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Post by templeton on Jan 30, 2014 15:51:13 GMT -5
That's a great onion, Richard. I'd be happy if my normal onions grew that big. Do they keep well? Do you primarily grow them for the tops as salad onions, or for the bottoms as bulb type cooking onions? Just a suggestion, plant a dozen or so bulbs in a row, and dozen of the top bulbils beside, to see what does best. From other threads here, you might get more little bulbs from big single bulbs (like true shallots), and fewer larger bulbs from the little bulbils. And another suggestion (full them this morning  ), if the flower heads look like totally succumbing, your could try the cut flower method, snip off the head and put in a vase on the windowsill, change the water daily. I'm trying this with spud onion head that got accidentally pruned, and the seed capsules are at least still a bit green while rest of the stalk is drying off. Probably should have given it a feed. Recommendations for cut flowers in water is a bit of sugar for food, squeeze of lemon to adjust pH, any a tiny bit of bleach to prevent tne water going scungy. Trim the bottom of the stalk daily to keep it fresh. T |
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Post by zeedman on Jan 30, 2014 23:49:46 GMT -5
The ground bulbs dry out fairly quickly, unlike the bulbils. I'm not sure they would survive out of the ground until Spring. When I dig up the bulbs, I replant them again in the Fall. The bulbs will sprout & divide before Winter, and begin growing again as soon as the snow melts... as Joseph mentioned, they are remarkably tough. Most of the shoots which form will produce full sized bulbils.
For bulbs left in the ground, I've also dug up the clumps in late Fall (after they have divided & sprouted), carefully separated them, and immediately replanted the individual shoots. Those too went on to produce full sized bulbils, and pretty large ground bulbs.
Walking onions thrive on neglect; the only reasons I dig them up are to relocate them, or to harvest the bulbs for cooking.
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hey, well spotted steev
), if the flower heads look like totally succumbing, your could try the cut flower method, snip off the head and put in a vase on the windowsill, change the water daily. I'm trying this with spud onion head that got accidentally pruned, and the seed capsules are at least still a bit green while rest of the stalk is drying off. Probably should have given it a feed. Recommendations for cut flowers in water is a bit of sugar for food, squeeze of lemon to adjust pH, any a tiny bit of bleach to prevent tne water going scungy. Trim the bottom of the stalk daily to keep it fresh.