[galen]

After doing my best  at digging to Australia ( ) to get rid of my couch grass, creeping buttercup, nettle and doc roots on one bed, successfully "Round upping" 2 others I’m finally round to digging my 4th and final bed where the onions and roots are meant to be going this year. Fortunately the previous tenant had covered it with black plastic, unfortunately covered in bark wood chips etc (half removed, 9 big garden sacks worth so far, enough to do my paths about a foot deep I think).

Anyway, to cut what is getting a long story short I’ve now discovered the area where I was aiming to plant my onions this weekend is acidic. Weather permitting I was thinking of liming and forking it well in tomorrow, and then come Sunday planting the onion sets in 5 x 5 x 5 cm compost pockets. Will this work or am I just too late for the lime?

[Salmo]

Lime and fork it in. Water the soil well before planting.

[galen]

Cheers Salmo, you always give good advice. I take it I should still sow my onion sets in the (multi) compost pockets though ?

[DD.]

I was wondering why you'd want to do that, rather than plant direct in the soil. It sounds like you're making work for yourself.

[galen]

DD wasn't sure whether the lime would burn my sets like fresh manure and fertilizer can do.

Then, having said that, you can dust the pockets (not the right word is it) with lime when you plant your Brassica’s.

Oh well, first year but in for the long time so will see what happens