onions away!!

The first green shoots of the overwintering onions have appeared so things are looking good. I read somewhere that in the north of England and Scotland you should not plant them any later than the end of August but if I did that mine would put on too much top growth before the cold weather. I have put them in as late as mid October and they’ve come through the winter with no problems but that was before the last couple of very cold ones.

Overwintered onions seem to do well here with very few bolting. Not like overwintered broad beans which have been a disaster every time I've tried them so I'm not going to bother again. My solution to that problem is to make early sowings in late winter in containers in the greenhouse and that has worked well for the last two years.

I went through to the caravan today and noticed some excellent crops of sloes and other wild fruit. We have a large blackthorn bush either side of the caravan which is very convenient, but her indoors says we're not wasting good gin by sticking berries in it! Looks like it'll have to be jam and jelly again.

sloes (purple) and haws (red). they are on separate bushes!

I have loads of fruit in the freezer ready for a mammoth jam-making session if I ever get round to it. Trouble is there's lots of other stuff still to be done outside, even though the planting season is now behind us. I like re-designing things and moving stuff about, and there's frames and supports to make for climbing plants next year, oh and there's also this and that and........I like to keep busy.