Things are beginning to get moving on the allotment at last. We've had a bit of wet weather from around mid-March so I've waited until things dried out a little before planting out my Sturon Onion sets and early potatoes. Looking back at last year I'm only a few days later so no problems with timing.
The onions went in first, next to the garlic I planted earlier this month. I find onion sets much easier to deal with than seed so, unless you want something more exotic, sets are the way to go for a good supply of onions.
The soil was dug over, raked and a bit a fertiliser added a few days before. The onions were just pushed into the soft soil about 5 inches apart. I use a scaffolding board to walk on so the rows are just over a board apart, around a foot. Make sure you plant them pointy end up with the tip showing - you need to check on them frequently until they root as birds tend to pull them up! Just pop them back into the ground.
There was no avoiding it, one of two spud planting days had arrived with the associated 100 ft trench to be dug and re-filled. Ouch my back! I'm planting around 88 Rocket potatoes in three rows about a foot or so apart. (Earlies go in closer than main crop). I add a bit of fertiliser to the trench and the back-fill soil before planting.
Rocket potatoes can usually start to be be dug from around 10 weeks after planting so I should be eating these around the first week of June. I find Rocket to be cheap, reliable and plentiful at harvest time. They boil well too, they don't turn to mush like many of the early potato varieties.
That's it for this posy and this month. I'll be back in early April with a round-up.
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