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We’re now in onion time. Yes time to
plant onions, chives, garlic-chives and you guessed it… good old rot-your-socks-off
garlic. Onion seedlings such as Cream Gold,
Californian Red (often erroneously called Spanish) and SA White Globe Onions, as well as
Spring Onions from seed and seedlings. Top dress the soil with liberal sprinklings of
superphosphate and plant in an area with full sun, such as it is at this time of year and
above all, good drainage. If you cannot be sure of the good drainage, save yourself the
heartache and plant spinach or silverbeet.
Garlic can be sown from divided corms planted into open
trenches 10cm deep and left open until the corms shoot to the top of the trench, then
backfill. In light friable soil, you can cover them immediately, but in clay soil they
frequently rot, before they develop a root system.
Chives and Shallots, can be divided now and replanted into
containers with fresh potting media or into a new patch of soil in full sun. I find into
pots is ideal, since you can move them around to sunny spots in winter, then into morning
sum in summer and they still keep growing.
Any garlic, red or golden shallots, or flat-leaf
garlic-chives from your greengrocer will do, although if you want an outstanding cultivar
such as the tiny red French Garlic, it needs to be bought in a pot, as a live plant. They
mostly come in from Victoria. New Zealand small red garlic is pretty potent too and you
can ask for it by name at some stalls in the Central Market. The small white Chinese
Garlic in the market is not all that potent and if you want a real woosey garlic get the
Russian, Argentine or Elephant Garlic. They have huge corms, but are low on pungency.
Don’t overlook planting Parsley right now and try the
flat leaf Italian as well as the popular Afro-Curly leaf form and also spot-sown seed of
Chervil can go in now. These will all grow in partially shaded areas and they all need
plenty of nitrogen fertilizer and moisture to thrive. |
