This year my onions have been excellent, my shallots mediocre and garlic
b***** awful. As they have been grown in the same conditions, side by
side, why should that be please?
--
Residing on low ground in North Staffordshire

Moonraker wrote:
This year my onions have been excellent, my shallots mediocre and garlic
b***** awful. As they have been grown in the same conditions, side by
side, why should that be please?

It's not just you, my onions have been ... well, I /thought/ they were
terrible, but I dug through the weeds of where I thought they had all
failed, and found a load of huge ones! But the garlic has all rotted. I
think it may be a heavy year for white rot, perhaps. Or maybe the strange
weather just confused them.

In order of poor performance, I seem to have: garlic, white onions, brown
onions, red onions

"Moonraker" wrote in message
...
This year my onions have been excellent, my shallots mediocre and garlic
b***** awful. As they have been grown in the same conditions, side by
side, why should that be please?
--
Residing on low ground in North Staffordshire

Garlic is frog food, ergo only does well in frogland.
My onions are so so.

Vicky wrote ...

Moonraker wrote:
This year my onions have been excellent, my shallots mediocre and garlic
b***** awful. As they have been grown in the same conditions, side by
side, why should that be please?

It's not just you, my onions have been ... well, I /thought/ they were
terrible, but I dug through the weeds of where I thought they had all
failed, and found a load of huge ones! But the garlic has all rotted. I
think it may be a heavy year for white rot, perhaps. Or maybe the strange
weather just confused them.

In order of poor performance, I seem to have: garlic, white onions, brown
onions, red onions

Onions hate weeds around them , if you weed only one thing it has to be the
onions.

-- Regards
Bob Hobden
W.of London. UK

Bob Hobden wrote:
Onions hate weeds around them , if you weed only one thing it has to be the
onions.

They were really well weeded for quite a while, then I turned my back for a
week and they got to the point where they'd just taken over. I think the
hot then rain then hot then rain just gifted the weeds. :-/

The potatoes are the same. I swear I weeded it clear less than a month ago,
have been chipping away at them on the weekends since, and now the damned
things are 5' tall! Fortunately the potatoes are all growing in bags, so
the weeds aren't actually affecting the potato plant growth, they just look
ugly.

"Moonraker" wrote

This year my onions have been excellent, my shallots mediocre and garlic
b***** awful. As they have been grown in the same conditions, side by side,
why should that be please?


So many variables but Garlic is usually finished growing well before
shallots and onions IME. So if you had the drought like us in the spring did
you water it? Did you plant it in the autumn, late Sept early Oct?
Our garlic is quite good this year, bigger bulbs than in the shops and very
juicy.

Our problem with onions is White Rot which seems to be getting worse. A 4
year rotation makes no difference. Anyone got a cure?

-- Regards
Bob Hobden
W.of London. UK

Similar problems here in SW France. We had less than normal amounts of
winter rain and the worst drought for 50 years since March. I've watered as
best I can and had OK onions, but the shallots and garlic were much smaller
than normal.

I've found my first evidence of white rot and now that all the alliums are
lifted, I'm going to try an organic cure that I read about here ...
http://www.growyourown.info/page173.html

Fingers crossed that it works.


Roy

"Bob Hobden" wrote in message
...
"Moonraker" wrote

This year my onions have been excellent, my shallots mediocre and garlic
b***** awful. As they have been grown in the same conditions, side by
side, why should that be please?


So many variables but Garlic is usually finished growing well before
shallots and onions IME. So if you had the drought like us in the spring
did you water it? Did you plant it in the autumn, late Sept early Oct?
Our garlic is quite good this year, bigger bulbs than in the shops and
very juicy.

Our problem with onions is White Rot which seems to be getting worse. A 4
year rotation makes no difference. Anyone got a cure?

-- Regards
Bob Hobden
W.of London. UK

Hello All

In article ,
Moonraker wrote:
This year my onions have been excellent, my shallots mediocre and garlic
b***** awful. As they have been grown in the same conditions, side by
side, why should that be please?

I do not grow garlic, but my onions are good, and my shallots are mixed. I
try and maintain a number of HDRA varieties, and had 7 rows of different
varieties growing side by side. Earlier in ythe season they all looked to be
growing well, but at harvest only two rows are really good, and they are
varieties that do not normally make large bulbs. I am baffled.

I am in East Anglia which was very dry this year, but both onions and
shallots were watered.

John

--
John Rye
Hadleigh IPSWICH England
http://www.ryepad.plus.com
--- Using RISC OS Six on an Acorn StrongArm RiscPC and under VARPC ---

On Mon, 8 Aug 2011 Sgt Pepper wrote:

Similar problems here in SW France. We had less than normal amounts of
winter rain and the worst drought for 50 years since March. I've watered as
best I can and had OK onions, but the shallots and garlic were much smaller
than normal.

I've found my first evidence of white rot and now that all the alliums are
lifted, I'm going to try an organic cure that I read about here ...
http://www.growyourown.info/page173.html

Fingers crossed that it works.

Hmmm, I bought some garlic bulbs from Thomson and Morgan this year and
planted them in my garden in Normandy. The last time I was over there
(three weeks ago) I noticed they were all suffering from white rot. :-(

David

--
David Rance writing from Caversham, Reading, UK
http://rance.org.uk

"Sgt Pepper" wrote ...

Similar problems here in SW France. We had less than normal amounts of
winter rain and the worst drought for 50 years since March. I've watered as
best I can and had OK onions, but the shallots and garlic were much smaller
than normal.

I've found my first evidence of white rot and now that all the alliums are
lifted, I'm going to try an organic cure that I read about here ...
http://www.growyourown.info/page173.html

Fingers crossed that it works.


Well I have today watered the plot our onions will be in next season with
garlic water, rain is due this night so that should water it in well. Here's
hoping it works.

-- Regards
Bob Hobden
W.of London. UK