[Offwego]

despite my previous post the allotment society has about 15 barrowloads of manure left and if its dry tomorrow i may end up putting it on my plot
yes i know i will half kill myself wheeling up hill on slippery narrow grass paths but the temptation is too great
I really want to improve my previous miserly efforts with onions this year and have ordered some good quality  plants
i fully intend doing beds this year with 18" paths between each 3ft bed, there is conflicting information on manure for onion beds but it seems fairly well rotted and if i put tit down now it should have plenty of time for the "freshness" to work itself out

my thoughts are to spread the manure approx 50mm thick over the bed and then cover the bed with black polythene to help the worms get active and breakdown the manure

thoughts please?

[mumofstig]

Sounds just perfect to me.
In his advice for onion growing
Growing Onions - How to Grow Onions - Allotment & Gardens
John says

Planting out soil can be light to medium density, must be well-drained, and have some rotted manure or compost dug in the previous autumn but not be overly rich. Potash can be added as ashes or in fertilizers.

Make sure your back is warm if you are going to be wheel-barrowing muck about in this cold weather - I speak from past experience

[sunshineband]

A word of caution not to overdo the manure, that 5cm layer will be plenty. Before you plant out your precious onion plants, make sure the manure is well incorporated into the soil. I found out the hard way that clods of manure mean that onion roots stay very wet and do not thrive  It sounds obvious now, I know

And yes, I would have gone to collect it all too! We keep our "spare" manure under a black plastic sheet, and it is great to have it available whenever we need any 

[Offwego]

all done , i started this morning just before 8am in the heavy frost and minus 1deg which wasnt as mad as it sounds as the paths were frozen hard and far easier to wheel on.

3 of the five beds are done with about 60mm of manure spread over , its a bit fresher than i hoped so i didn't cover with a sheet i thought i would leave the rain wash it through
took me 3 hours of hard work but its done now and my back will soon get better:)
now to decide what goes where this year and  for the rest of the day my DT brown  seed catalogue has just come with the postman.
This year for the first time we are not planting early spuds and keeping the room for other things, we had a slight issue last year with wireworms despite a liberal application of lime  so we will rest the spuds this year- well thats the thinking so far but as with anything it subject to change

cant wait for the season to really start 

[rowlandwells]

I usually cultivate the onion bed with a balanced NPK fertilizer together with wood ash and lime but I to was thinking about spreading some horse manure on the bed  prior to planting my onions but after reading your advise that this could be non productive

I think I'm going to stick with my original method but as I said I use lime on the ground  white lime but  I was given some brown lime that I thought about using instead of white lime?

[Offwego]

On the same site as i am on an experienced   guy is a top class grower and does very well at shows as well. he has just spread manure from the same pile over his beds at a thickness of about 60mm , he grows  mainly beans , marrows, cucumbers and  onions for the show  (which incidentally he also eats ) and they  are always  fine specimens.
yes we all would have preferred it done a month earlier but the weather in November  early December was very poor so that just couldn't happen.
i think i will follow his example on this

what he hasn't done so far is cover over  the manure with black sheeting but weather permitting i will be doing this tomorrow as i have enough sheet  for two of the beds.

[rowlandwells]

speaking  of onion beds rather than sowing  onion  seed in trays then to pots before planting out what results would one get by say sowing the seed directly in rows in the ground then replanting the onion plants when big enough to handle individually in rows?

 I have also read somewhere you can sow three seeds per station into modules then when there big enough to plant out leave them in block not disturbing the roots and they will produce a bulb onions has anyone tried this method and if so did they produce a good bulb is it worth trying 

[sunshineband]

In reverse order, yes sowing three or four seeds per module and planting them out as a clump gives sensible sized onions for cooking, even if they are not perfectly round.

As for direct sowing, I have not done this with maincrop onions as the ground is a bit too cold and wet for them to germinate and give a plant of a decent size to prick out/replant early enough to grow a biggish bulb. On our plots, the skinny little onion seedlings would be swamped with weed seedlings germinating round them and it would be very fiddly to clear them: they hate sharing their bed with anything else! This is just my opinion, based on experience of direst sowing salad onions, though

[New shoot]

I've not had much success with direct sowing onions either, but my soil is heavy.  I've tried those flat continental type ones like Cipollini a few times - the ones where you are supposed to be able to sow a patch and eat the thinnings, until you end up with what you want to grow to a decent size - nuthin' doing 

The module trick works well with onions though.  It also works for spring onions (a small pinch of seeds), beetroot (3 per module), turnips (approx 6 per module) and you can also use up leek seed going out of date to produce baby leeks this way (again about 6 per module).

I always have a few sets of modules on the go at home over the season, ready to transport to the plot as and when   

[sunshineband]

I do beet and spring onions like that, but never thought of sowing leeks in modules like that for baby ones. I sow leeks in a deep tray in February, and use any littlun's left over from planting out, three to a hole, for small ones.

I also sow small pinches of mixed salad in modules and plant out as a small clump when large enough, then cut the whole lot once it is large enough

Sorry, seem to have strayed from the onion thread, so I'll get back on track.

My maincrop onions and Autumn onions I grow from sets

[Offwego]

Thought that in between showers I would go to the plot and cover the beds with some black plastic, well as soon as I started it came to hail😂
Managed to cover two of the three manures beds before i ran out of plastic as a temporary measure i weighed them down with my home made cloches which are quite heavy the next chance I have I will spade in all edges and tuck them away until spring☺️

Then went straight home for a warm shower and ready for the rugby 🏉

[Offwego]

Wheeled another barrow full up today and then covered bed 2 with plastic I then tucked in all edges on the three beds so that them nicely tucked away until later march . I've never done this before so it will be an experiment for me and one i will report my findings on this as we go on.

I hope weather permitting to prepare beds 4 and 5 sometime this week
I'm still undecided on what to use for the paths yet, bark or paving slabs and i need to make my mind up quickly and get them done

[snowdrops]

Wheeled another barrow full up today and then covered bed 2 with plastic I then tucked in all edges on the three beds so that them nicely tucked away until later march . I've never done this before so it will be an experiment for me and one i will report my findings on this as we go on.

I hope weather permitting to prepare beds 4 and 5 sometime this week
I'm still undecided on what to use for the paths yet, bark or paving slabs and i need to make my mind up quickly and get them done

I started my paths with strips of weed suppressant membrane then gradually covered with slabs as I got them.

[Offwego]

Good call

[mumofstig]

Our contracts don't allow paving slabs, really can't understand why - but they don't.