growing onions

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rowlandwells

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growing onions
« on: March 27, 2019, 09:39 »
I take it most of us who grow onions  be it spring or bulb or shallots like most we tent to grow sets for storing the only downside for me with onions is weeding them because like some veg that tends to smother the weeds but not onions don't and no sooner have you weeded the onion patch a shower of rain and the weeds are up again

if you grow onions do you carry on weeding till you lift your onions or do stop weeding as the onions get bigger bulbs so as not to damage the bulbs


I've said this many times before when you see onions field grown there always clean and weed free years ago there used to be a gang of chaps hoeing onions but that's all gone now so what do the commercial onion growers use to stop all that hand weeding i would love to know there secret because i usually get fed up with weeding onions towards the end and let the weeds have there day :D

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Enfield Glen

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Re: growing onions
« Reply #1 on: March 27, 2019, 12:43 »
I suppose it depends on your level of OCD when it comes to weeds, I suffer with a zero tolerance and think a nice neat bed of onions recently weeded the equivalent to a Turner seascape.

Obviously the more weed the more completion.
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Goosegirl

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Re: growing onions
« Reply #2 on: March 27, 2019, 13:47 »
None of the onion family like competition from weeds so I hoick my annual ones out when I see them. There's always the invasion of dock and couch-grass to contend with so I just use a little fork and get out as much as I can.
I work very hard so don't expect me to think as well.

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Pescador

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Re: growing onions
« Reply #3 on: March 27, 2019, 13:50 »
Commercial growers used to use Simazine or Atrazine, not sure what they use now as I believe both of these are now banned in UK.
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rowlandwells

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Re: growing onions
« Reply #4 on: March 27, 2019, 17:30 »
your probably rite Pescador those two chemicals may be banned so there is obviously something the commercial onion growers use but not available to the home gardener I wish I have used breathable woven [poly] ground cover but I couldn't get on with it so it looks like i need a sharp hoe


also getting of the subject i used to drive a tanker we used to deliver to a brewery at Pontyclune if i remember it was an old fashioned brewery is it still Pescador

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grinling

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Re: growing onions
« Reply #5 on: March 27, 2019, 19:35 »
Never see the farmer on the field once sown and when harvesting the field have lots of weeds

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Pescador

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Re: growing onions
« Reply #6 on: March 27, 2019, 19:58 »
What year were you delivering to Pontyclun?

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Dev

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Re: growing onions
« Reply #7 on: March 27, 2019, 21:39 »
I grow onions from seed and use the no-dig method, which reduces weeds. Obviously they blow in from other plots but I hand weed maybe twice a season. If you let the weeds seed you will have them for ages. An old expression is one years seeds seven years weeds. I have no inclination to test the timescale, but its a fact - if you let the weeds go to seed, and they do it remarkably quickly, you will have seeds in the soil and every time you turn the soil over you will bring more to the surface.

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Aidy

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Re: growing onions
« Reply #8 on: March 27, 2019, 21:43 »
I grow mine from seed and I use weed membrane!
Lay the membrane on the ground and use a blow torch to make the hole, as it makes the hole it welds the membrane threads so they dont fray.
This keeps the weeds to a min and allows the onion to grow with min effort.
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DHM

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Re: growing onions
« Reply #9 on: March 28, 2019, 12:24 »
I grow mine from seed and I use weed membrane!
Lay the membrane on the ground and use a blow torch to make the hole, as it makes the hole it welds the membrane threads so they dont fray.
This keeps the weeds to a min and allows the onion to grow with min effort.

Love this idea. How do you tether the sheet to the ground? I imagine on our site the wind would take it up and damage the plants...

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engineer

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Re: growing onions
« Reply #10 on: March 28, 2019, 22:38 »
The way I keep the weeds down is to lay builders DPC between the rows, usually 10" or 225mm held down with bricks or pegs. Nothing grows between the rows, however, between the onions still needs weeding.


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Aidy

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Re: growing onions
« Reply #11 on: March 29, 2019, 10:35 »
I grow mine from seed and I use weed membrane!
Lay the membrane on the ground and use a blow torch to make the hole, as it makes the hole it welds the membrane threads so they dont fray.
This keeps the weeds to a min and allows the onion to grow with min effort.

Love this idea. How do you tether the sheet to the ground? I imagine on our site the wind would take it up and damage the plants...
I use pegs and plastic bricks ??? well the bricks are off cuts, we have a local manufacturer that makes park benches and they have load of off cuts, a mate has access to them so whenever we need any we get a load.
Nearly everyone on our site grows them this way so they is very little need to weed.

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John

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Re: growing onions
« Reply #12 on: March 29, 2019, 12:14 »
If you fill milk cartons with sand or soil they make bricks for holding down fleece and weed mat but, unlike real bricks, no sharp edges to tear.

Best tip for onions - add 2 oz per square yard of road salt to the bed a week or two prior to planting. Sounds mad but it was suggested by L D Hills so I gave it a go with excellent results. As long as the bed is rotated there isn't a build up of salt. Really I should have done half the bed so as to give a more scientific trial but I didn't.

On putting holes in weed matting - Curtis Stone who's a Canadian market gardener, takes a piece of plywood and cuts holes in it with a hole saw. Places over the mat and then uses a flame weeding blow torch to make the holes. There's a 3 1/2 minute video that tells you that  here :)
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rowlandwells

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Re: growing onions
« Reply #13 on: March 29, 2019, 18:58 »
reply to Pescador  about 15 years ago and it was a lovely old brewery that's where I seen a man making oak casks I think they call then coopers ?

and if I remember they where brewing traditional welsh ale so it was funny I was delivering bulk lager  :D

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rowlandwells

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Re: growing onions
« Reply #14 on: March 29, 2019, 19:04 »
John road salt is like gold dust round here  :D  but it sounds a good idea Il see if I can borrow a bucketful from the council bin  :D



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