Lesson from Onion (Seeds Give-Away)

 The Australian Brown onion and spring onion plant in our garden taught us something new about them this spring. Onions are biennial plants which flowers/seeds on their second year. After the plant has produce seeds, it will leave us as the plant has spent it last energy producing seeds for new progenies. Same goes for biennial flower like foxglove or hollyhock. Last spring, we left one plant growing in a polystyrene box after cutting out all the dried seed pods. I sowed some water spinach seeds in the same box after adding new compost, thinking while the onion plant spend it last days will helped deter some pest away from the young water spinach seedlings. Another spring came again for the onion plants, those water spinach plants long gone since autumn as they don't do well in cold season but those onion plants remain evergreen and produces seeds again this spring. I was really amazed that those onions kept on growing and produces new buds each time we cut the drying pods. These onion plants can be short live perennial with our mild winter. 

I discovered that growing Australian brown onion and spring onion for seeds once well-established in the garden:

~Require minimal care.

~Good companion for young plants.

~Does not require much space to keep as you can plant some plants in between.

~Require minimal watering

~Withstand scorching summer heat.

~One plant each is enough to give plenty of seeds or share for next season planting and save money from buying seeds.

 We have very small space to grow plants but I don't think saving seeds from these plants will take much space. Australian Brown Onion is a long-day variety and a long keeper. Sometime you find it in catalogue sometime you don't. I don't find the seeds available from the seeds company I got it first now this year, Digger has it in its catalogue at the moment.  I have experience several times of heirloom seeds that I like to obtain once again is not readily available anymore. Therefore, saving seeds of rare varieties are the only way to ensure I can continue growing the variety I like and suits my garden.

 I am giving-away Spring Onion and Aussie Brown Onion seeds for 3 seeds sowers of this post. The winner will be pick by the old-fashioned way of writing the name in the piece of paper, roll, shake and let see which paper will be pick randomly. I will announce the lucky recipients on my next posting perhaps tomorrow.

 Abby first passport photo. It was not easy to take as she keeps on turning the head side-ways rather than looking up at me. The photos were taken outside in the garden as I like to use natural light. 

Creamgold Onion

The year 2011 was the second year for us growing brown onions. The result was a bit better than our first time but we still have a lot to learn. I still can't get the right pace at the stage of near harvesting and storing them well (I was on my first trimester-yucky phase so did not keep an eye of it-excuses). What I observed in our micro-climate here in Adelaide plain is that by end spring the weather warm pretty fast here so I have to sow the seeds and transplant them much earlier. I should have finished sowing the seeds by mid-April (mid-autumn). Because I was learning last year I did succession sowing until end-May which cause some to be transplanted late. Due to this the younger plants produce smaller bulbs when harvest time. Onion seedlings transplanting also should be completed by mid-June (early winter) in our garden here (space has always been an issue causing transplant delay). Now I learn one thing that long-day variety brown onion does not bolt easily in our garden (FYI, I never sow seeds indoors, all outdoors expose to the changing weather). We tried growing Cream gold onion (Eden Seeds) last year.

Cream gold onion seeds just sprouted and poking out from the soil.

I always wonder why the single allium leaf seedlings folds like that first.

Seeds coats attached.

Still very tiny look so fragile after few days transplanting seedlings in winter.

Onion do grow very slowly and makes you wonder when will the plant starts to bulb.

I presumed that this is mid-late spring because volunteer pink larkspur is blooming at the back.

Still no bulb just big leaves after 4-5months from transplanting.

Bulbs begin to develop.

Dried fallen leaves from my neighbour tree help with mulching.

The leaves shoots up straight when the bulbs develop?

No photos near harvest since the photographer was not feeling well.

Our official onion harvest is January-February (mid-late summer).

Growing onion makes you wait a long time before you can enjoy it.

For us the onion growing process starts from April and ends in February.

Although it end in February, it does take sometime to cure harvested onions for them to store well.

We don't encounter any problem growing onion here with pest or disease.

Its just the extreme warm weather at onion harvest season can be challenging.

If I water them near harvest season the papery onion skin won't be good.

If I don't water them at all , the plants will die.

Dilemma.

Any suggestion for future reference?

We did managed to harvest probably more than 70 brown onions in our small garden this year.

But not much left now, probably finish by end of this month.

Home-grown brown onion is so sweet different from the one selling in supermarkets.

Growing them took up space, but we still grow some because its different from what you get from the commercial ones.

Potato Onion

Growing potato onion for beginner is easy.

It does very well in mild weather.

Just push in the onion bulb into the soil and wait for some leaves to sprout.

We grew potato onion for the first time last year.

We did not pampered them at all.

Just some watering and leave them to grow on their own.

I think we planted them around April~May.

Perhaps can be planted earlier in March, but we usually don't have space in that month.

This is our note of potato onion growing stages.

We grew 3 bulbs of potato onion last year.

The leaves look like spring onions, tempting to cut.

Starting to form separate stalk for new bulbs formation.

More potato onion bulbs forming from a plant.

You can harvest a bulb and let others grow.

The plants will keep multiply bulbs.

Don't need to harvest all the plants, just harvest what you need and let them grow more for you.

Maybe this is a good onion for gardeners with limited space.

We wanted to let our potato onion plant to keep on growing.

But alas the summer weather here did not permit us.

So harvest them all I have to.

Most of the leaves have dried out, by the time we pull out the plants.

Another thing I have to learn and gain more experience of growing onion is the watering part.

How to control the amount water so we have some good number of skin layers.

So that the onions can be stored well.

From those 3 potato onion plants, we got more than 25 bulbs.

Have a nice weekend!

Happy Gardening!

2012 End Summer Harvest Finale

Summer ending for us here.

I am sure many gardeners living in Northern hemisphere are happy greeting spring.

Did not take many photo lately.

But here some what we had been harvesting at the end of summer.

Sorted some of our brown onions that are left curing in the shed, brought in some onion for the kitchen use which does not going to store well.

Pak choi grown in container and miraculously survive the extreme summer heat.

We harvested our first batch of kang kong/water spinach bamboo leaves, second summer broccoli and bonica eggplants.

Mice have been nibbling on the top of our root vegetables, so we harvested carrots and beetroots.

Beans, cherry tomatoes, brown onions and shallots.

Carrots and self-sowed amaranth (bayam).

We harvested our first banana capsicum that we grown from seeds this warm season. 

Pak choi, hon tsai tai, daikon, baby beetroot and cherry tomatoes.

The weather has cool down a bit now.

Hoping that our summer veggies will set fruit well now.

It was too hot before for them to set fruit, although they have blooms.

Wishing for more cucurbit and solanum family harvest at the moment.

Visit Daphne's Dandellion for harvest monday and see what other gardeners doing with their harvest.

Till Valentine End Summer Harvest

The cherry tomatoes did much better than the other tomato varieties this summer season. We were lucky to  be able to harvested some round eggplants last week.

We harvested our first time home-grown potato onions. Should have reduced the watering when it was ready to be harvested. But I was relying on dear hubby with the watering so I let him do whatever he wants as long as the plants were watered during peak summer.

Brought in some garlic into the kitchen that we left curing in the shed.

Challenger tomato variety but it got scorched badly by the sun. 

I was cleaning up some part of the garden last weekend because it look so shabby after the scorching weather cause during mid-summer and I was surprised to find some cucumbers. It looks misshapen but I never expected to get any cucumbers this summer. First time we harvested a broccoli in end summer that was grown/sowed from last autumn. Another unexpected surprise that the broccoli plant manage to form a curd and not bolt in hot weather. Possibly the cool weather we had a few weeks helped. We also harvested a few root vegetables; carrots, turnip, beetroots and volunteer  potatoes. Some hot red sexy chillies for valentine were harvested as well. Will be making some sambal sauce stock this afternoon with mama after we buy some lemon/lime this afternoon.

With the love valentine theme, some red harvest; strawberries, chillies, tigerella tomato, challenger and cherry tomato.

Visit Daphne's Dandelions to share and enjoy together what other gardeners has been harvesting all over the world.

Aussie Brown Onion Life-Cycle

The first time we attempted to grow onion from seeds is Aussie brown onion variety in the middle of last year. Aussie brown onion is a late-variety onion. Although onion takes a long time to grow, fresh home-grown brown onion tasted sweet. Aussie brown onion seeds sowed mid-winter will be ready to harvest some time in February. Since it took so long to wait for it to ready to harvest, I forgot about them and some of them had to be used quickly when I realised it was past the correct time to harvest them.

Aussie brown onion seedlings.

Unfortunately the first time we tried growing onion from seeds, we did not have any space to grow them (wrong planning on my side). So we had to try growing them in shallow containers. Because onion took it own sweet time to grow, we inter-planted onion with Asian leafy greens for productivity.

Our first time growing brown onion in container was not that much of a success but can't say that it failed as well. Harvested onions size were in the range of medium~small. There are still improvement I need to make towards my attitude towards onion. I usually leave all allium in neglect after I transplanted them. I think it would be better that if I sowed onion seeds earlier and transplant them as soon as possible. This year is revenge, hopefully we have much better onion harvest early next year.  

I did not intend to collect Aussie brown onion seeds. But I always forget the existence of 2 Aussie brown onion left growing in the container over winter. This spring season, these plants started to flower and hungry bees were happy that I been forgetting what grows in the garden. I found it was interesting to watch the stages of Aussie brown onion flower development from bud to full bloom , click to link. 

Aussie brown onion seeds. It takes more than a year from sowing to seeds.

Planning to collect any seeds this month?

たまねぎの花ざかりの君たちへ~For you in full Blossom

While I was organising my 'Aussie brown' onion flower pictures, I just realised how interesting the onion bloom stages were to observe. Am I the only one who has been ignorant about this stages of bloom for brown onion? Please let me share with you and hope you enjoy it. 

The flower bud ~early stages.

The bud becoming fat and soon to bloom.

New bloom.

 The first pollen to develop and peek outside.

More pollen. Can you see a small admirer on the pollen?

In its full bloom. Hopefully some were well pollinated to produce seeds for next generation.

Have a nice weekend!