For Dirty Nails growing veg is about so much more than just eating food. He completed his Radar onion planting in fabulous Indian summer weather, as a vast, shape-shifting gathering of house martins and swallows worked the insect-rich skies above. Being an active piece in the web of life, and feeling in tune with the rhythm of the seasons, is all part of the magic.
Winter Onions
September is the month to plant winter onion sets. They are widely available and alternatively known as autumn onions. Dirty Nails gets consistently good returns with the Radar variety. They will tough out even the harshest winter, swell up in spring, and ripen for harvesting in late May. Winter onions do not store for very long, unlike main crops, but are valuable in early summer when stored main crop supplies are low or have been exhausted.
Onions like a sunny position and firm root-run. Dirty Nails prepares his onion bed a few days in advance of planting. He lightly forks over the selected plot and scatters handfuls of wood ash over it. He aims to dust the soil thinly but evenly. He rakes the bed level and to a crumbly tilth, then treads it down again before raking some more. The sets are planted at 6 inch (15 cm) intervals with a foot (30 cm) between rows.
Straight rows are much easier to look after than wonky ones, so Dirty Nails always uses a line of string tied between two sticks to mark them out. He makes a little planting nest for each one with his finger so as not to damage the acorn-sized miniature onion as he pushes it into the soil. Using both hands, he uses his thumbs and first-finger knuckles to secure each set, leaving the top of the bulb exposed. Sprouting roots can lift them out if they are not nestled in snugly. There is little else to do apart from keeping moist and weed-free, watch and wait.
Natural History In The Garden: Slow Worm Babies
September is the prime month for slow worm babies to be born. Females hold their eggs internally until virtually the point of hatching, whereupon they deposit six to 12 fully developed youngsters in a thin, transparent shell that breaks open almost immediately. The 2 inch (5 cm) long, legless lizards are beautiful black and gold slivers of muscle the thickness of a knitting needle. Completely independent, they start feeding on tiny slugs straightaway.
Vegetable Snippets: The Pros And Cons Of Using Peat
Peat is partially decomposed plant debris, and is located in bogs and moors. These are basically cool, waterlogged environments. Taking thousands of years to form, peat is arguably the best growing medium for cultivating seedlings of a wide range of plants. It is stable, long lasting, well aerated, moisture retentive and an extremely popular choice in the greenhouse or shed as potting compost.
However the peat industry for horticultural purposes has been responsible for the destruction of 94% of British peat lands in the latter half of the twentieth century. These areas are, coincidentally, home to a range of rare or specialised plants and animals which are threatened by this habitat loss: wildlife such as sundews, butterworts and bladderworts (all carnivorous plants), nightjars (summer visiting relatives of the woodpecker) and many species of weird and wonderful insects.
There is also a global warming issue linked with peat extraction. Being plant matter, a vast amount of carbon is locked up in peat. When it is removed and used, this carbon is released into the atmosphere which enhances the greenhouse effect. The quantities of carbon contained herein, and potential damage caused by its liberation, should not be underestimated.