Growing Onions and Root Vegetables
Episode: 10
Title: Growing Onions and Root Vegetables
Broadcast: May 21st
Presenter: Steve Wood
Late autumn is the perfect time to start planting root vegetables, and many of them are best grown by seed.
- When growing root vegetables it is important that the soil is free from rocks and gravel to ensure a uniform development.
- A good organic content is vital, but not too rich, as this can also contribute to misshapen produce.
- Blend the fine seed with some dry sand to help separate them.
- After three weeks the seedlings will be ready to thin out, which means pulling out the excess sprouted seedlings so we are left with a spacing of about eight centimetres between each plant.
- Use a light top dress of blood and bone followed by regular liquid feeds of a fish and seaweed based fertiliser.
- If you have dogs that are attracted to blood and bone, you can substitute it with a full fat soya bean meal.
- Cutting up your potatoes to increase the crop does run the risk of fungal infection and you may end up with less.
- Plant your seed potatoes whole, about twice the depth of the potato itself, ideally keeping the new shoot coming out facing upwards.
- Space the potatoes around fifteen centimetres apart and cover with soil.
- Washing the clumps of onion so that the individual plants come free easily.
- Lay them along the furrow at about ten centimetres apart, pinching each plant in. Add a little blood and bone or soya bean meal.
AS SEEN ON