Onions Hate Weeds

In 1977, following his penultimate heart attack, my dad lay in his Birmingham hospital bed and instructed me to drive to mid-Wales to check on his vegetable patch.  Why he was growing veg in Wales when we actually lived in Birmingham is another story, but the main point to note here is that he was particularly worried about his onions.  I was told step by step exactly what I had to do with them - lift them up a bit with a fork, lay them out to dry and so on.  When I arrived back at the hospital a couple of days later his first words, if I recall correctly were: 'How are my bloody onions?'

So you see that from a relatively young age I had the seriousness of onion growing impressed upon me, and it has been there ever since.  You simply can't mess about with onions, and in particular they HATE weeds.  You can buy a special hoe, called an onion hoe (no surprises there, then), but I've always reckoned it's best to hand weed them.  It's safer, and gentler and you're less likely to miss anything.

You may recall that I started my onions off in Shropshire a few weeks ago.  I've never done this before and must admit to feeling a bit nervous now that they've finally been transplanted.  Here's a very unflattering photo of me, preparing the ground for them:

Here's how they looked today when I popped up to check on them:

As you can see they look VERY tiny!  I had decided not to net them like I usually do when I plant them as I thought the birds would be unlikely to pull them out as they had already started growing.  Wrong.  I had to replace two or three today, but not too bad I suppose.  Hopefully they will hold their own and thrive.  However, I need to be vigilant because I also found a weed...

I have managed to plant the few strawberry plants I brought with me.  They look a bit sad and lost but providing they produce enough runners this years I should manage a respectable bed next year.  here they are:

I also checked on the potatoes today.  Nothing much to report yet, except for an invading buttercup, but at least it's looking tidy!

A final thought:  In my opinion you can never have enough onions...