Planted Rocket

[watervole]

 Planted a row of rocket where the shallots have just been dug up.

The shallots didn't do very well.  Maybe they were planted at the wrong depth, or they weren't watered enough.

The onions sets did better.   We had some white skinned ones and some brown ones (think the Brown ones were 'Shakespeare').  The brown skinned ones did best of the two.  Some of the onions bolted (threw up a flowering stalk - this is not what you want as they put the energy into the flower instead of the bulb).  Probably not enough watering when it was dry - plus there was a spell when I didn't do enough weeding.

Rocket is a handy crop. It lives up to it's name and grows really fast.  It's a leaf veg with a good flavour - Richard really loves it and often puts it in sandwiches with tahini or cheese.

I cleared a row of sugar snap peas that had finished. Sugarsnap are delicious and half of them never make it home as they get picked and eaten on site!

Comments

[feng_shui_house]

I read that you can eat the onion flowers- they're said to be a sweet, strong onion flavor. Just so it's not a total waste.

[pennski.livejournal.com]

My onions are still in the veg patch - should I lift them soon? A couple of them have still very upright stalks.

[watervole.livejournal.com]

Very upright stalks suggests to me that they have bolted. Pick those ones immediately and eat them first. If the leaves are starting to wither on the rest, then lift them out with a fork, let them rest on the soil in sunshine for a day or two, then take them home and let them finish drying out on newspaper.

[pennski.livejournal.com]

Thank-you for the useful advice. Yes a couple of them did bolt. I snapped off the flower stems but we shall definitely eat those first.

I shall watch out for withering on the others and act accordingly.

[vjezkova.livejournal.com]

Good! Hopefully you will have a new harvest soon.
I have already my onions in the cellar. They are small but highly aromatic.
Also my tomatoes look healthy, thanks to extremely hot and dry weather, there were no fungi to finish them.
Other vegetables (carrots, celery, parsley and majoram) are still struggling to survive the drought.

[watervole.livejournal.com]

I love the smell of onions.

Our allotment has blight (from the potatoes which are relatives), so I gave up on tomatoes.

[vjezkova.livejournal.com]

Pity.
Just to inform you - my experiment with growing potatoes on the compost failed - all the green had been eaten by damned slugs...