The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Growing => Vegetables => Topic started by: Odin on December 01, 2012, 06:56:52 pm
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Got an order for as many onions as I can grow.
Well that is the easy bit, question is how ? Got an area upto 40 yard X 30 yard. Cultivating and preping is not a problem, but planting sets one at once with a braddel sounds back breaking.
Any suggestions please for planting sets to a large area ???
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Sorry but absoluteley none - planting mine was dull but picking them up and drying them then hanging etc seemed to go on for ever. Worth it though.
Do share if you find a good planting technique.
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Sow seeds !
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Spread it out! Plant half now, and half in spring. That way one year I managed to have onions all year round...
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Going to struggle with seeds with the ground being to wet I have not been able to work a fine tilth. However I reckon its the only way. Just pray for a dry spell.
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I've found the only way with seeds is to plant a few each in modules then plant them out, which is even more back breaking than planting sets. They do grow perfectly well though in groups of up to 5 and still keep their shape, although the group needs more space than a single plant.
I mainly use sets in a bed about 4' wide by 30' long - tiny by comparison to your area. It's my knees which really suffer so I wear knee pads and kneel on a board so as not to compact the soil unevenly - onions like firm soil and the board compacts it evenly as I work.
I really don't see an alternative to getting right down there and planting the sets one by one - which is probably why the person who has offered to buy your crop is happy to pay you to do the work.
Maybe it's worth getting a HelpXer to do the planting - they have strong backs and knees ;D
On your scale getting in specialist equipment would be too expensive. I have no idea what machinery they use on a commercial scale, but there must be something. I don't know of any gadget designed for the kitchen gardener - it was probably the pot boy's job in the Victorian Kitchen Garden ;D :garden:
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start some off under glass and spread the labour over several weeks. that way if you have a dry spell or a strange unseasonable wet spell :innocent: they won't all bolt to seed. sow some as seed and some as sets