CONCERNING ONIONS

Evening Star, Issue 20346, 30 November 1929, Page 28

CONCERNING ONIONS

Often when flower heads are developed on onions they are simply broken off, leaving the hollow of the stem open. Often, too, this is not done until the blossoms are almost appearing. It is far better to use the knife and cut off in the solid tissue, just below the bud, and the earlier this amputation is performed the better, whether the patient be onion or shallot (writes a contributor to the ‘ Gardener’s Chronicle,’ London). About a year ago my gardener came elated with tidings of the only true and certain mode of preventing bolting—it was to remove much of the roots when transplanting, a routine performance, according to some French writers. The practice was essayed, with the result that about three of every seven plants bolted, thus hardly confinning the validity of the mode and contrasting with the neighbouring bulbil-raised plants, of which only some three bolted in three 10yd rows. For many years the bulbil method has uniformly done better hero than the transplantation of August (February in New Zealand) sowings. Several varieties have been tried (Brown Globe, Long Keeping, etc.), but the classic Jaune de Mulhouse seems to take a deal of beating for the purpose. The seeds are thickly sown—a patch of 2ft square suffices to raise some hundreds—and the poorest patch of gravelly soil is selected; cautious hand-weeding is indicated; if raised before the green -withers little trouble is needed to find the tiny bulbs; these w© ripen in trays and store them over winter in a shed or cool greenhouse. For our soil we use bulbs of about five to eight millimetres, say about a quarter of an inch, larger ones being rejected; in some soils those up to threeeighths of an inch may be usable. Therefore an experiment of different sizes may bo made as a guide. Set them out in some open weather, in February (August) or thereabouts, but in the ridges between drills and completely buried (the same as for shallots), for if not well rooted before they grow the thrushes, blackbirds, etc., will pull them up. Later rake away the soil to expose the bulbs. There would seem to be some economy in seeds in this practice, less labour and little or no loss from bolters. The tree onion (otherwise Egyptian onion, and its congener the American Catawissa) seems to have come from China (D. Bois), where it was described at the end of the fourteenth century. When cultivated in the orthodox way the reward is comparatively disappointing in amount, and it is not very, commonly grown. By the rubric, we plant out the bulbils in the spring, and arc to get a crop of bulbs ■which should not rush _ into bulbil-apology-for-blossom until the next year; its harvesting is contemporaneous with other onions.- Be this method as it may, a variant makes it bridge a gap usefully. There often comes a time when the stored onions are finished in the spring, aad the new are not yet ready for pulling. In this instance of time the tree onion may he mad© quite useful, plant the little bulbs in autumn, probably with the precaution against birds, given above. They soon push out and grow more or lets all the winter, so that when spring comes they lightly turn to thoughts of bulb-making; if this is allowed to happen the “ leek-like growths” of some inch or so in diameter, will rapidly become woody and fibrous —in fact, they are heartily spurned from the kitchen. If, however, their blossoming is stopped by cutting off the summits so soon as they are recognised, quite a useful set of long, leek-like, cylindrical onions are available for the kitchen, probably until “ onions come again.” Thus one may bridge over the lacuna between old and new—a matter sometimes of importance.