After checking the schedule for our village show, it seems there are three categories for onions:

Heaviest onion

3 onions

5 onions to pass through 3 inch ring

In hindsight, it would have made sense to check the competition schedule before beginning the whole growing process, but never mind.

By some fluke I realise that one of my pastry cutters is a 3”dia. circle, so at least I have a ready-made measure when the time comes.

The onions are growing on well but I will be way short of the 4lb mark which I believe would be a starting point to contend for heaviest onion [ to put this into context, the world record is currently over 18lb!). The reds are generally smaller than the whites, and because of the earlier “leaning” snag, some of them are not symmetrical. I think finding a matching set could be tricky.

White onions 25 July

Red onions 25 July

It seems that preparing the onions for show is a whole new game. Typically onions are lifted four weeks before showing to allow sufficient time to develop the lovely even, brown skin. In order to get matching sizes, growers measure the circumference of the best onion when lifted and leave others to grow on until they catch up. I’m not sure I’ve got enough onions to make this work.

There is also the art of cleaning, skinning and trimming, applying talcum powder to aid drying of the skin, where to leave them to brown off, what to put them on when they are drying, softening the neck and tying raffia around it to RHS standard. Oh my word, this is not going to be easy.

We’ve written before about growing our own Dahlias and over the years we’ve been trying to refine our collection so that there is a bit more colour co-ordination and less of Mark’s “vibrant mixes”.

We’ve got a few spaces dedicated to flowers in the allotments.  We like the idea that the plots should be decorative as well as functional and there are times when we simply want to enjoy the surroundings.

Flower Bed 21 July 2016

Dahlias 21 July 2016

The Dahlias need regular dead-heading to keep the flowers coming and this means a regular flow of cut flowers for the household.

Dahlias 26 July

Dahlias 26 July

Summer has arrived in the allotment over the last few weeks.  Harvesting has started, with almost half of the early Anya potatoes now dug and the greenhouse tomatoes are ripening nicely.

Spuds 21 July 2016

Ripening tomatoes 21 July 2016

The beans are growing strongly, with most of those in the picture below being Borlotti Beans that we grow for drying and storage – they’re great for winter casseroles.  We do grow a few runner beans as they are delicious fresh from the plant but for two of us more than 3 or 4 plants means that it is bean glut time.

Beans 21 July 2016

We’ve also started pulling the first carrots and the parsnips are promising a good autumn and winter harvest.  One of our long-standing goals, going back to the days of just three 6ft by 4ft raised beds in the garden, has been to have our own roasted parsnips on Christmas Day.

Parsnips 21 July 2016

Carrots 21 July 2016

Most exciting of all is the first crops from our new soft fruit cordons.

Redcurrants 21 July 2016

Earlier in the year we talked about growing giant vegetables, but we’ve also tried some big sunflowers as well.  we haven’t grown any champions, but we’re pretty pleased with the display that we’ve had.  They have sprinted past the sweetcorn in the old plot and reached the top of the fruit cage in the new one.

Can’t reach the top

Sunflowers by the fruit cage

as well as providing a splash of high summer colour, we’ve found that we tend to get quite a lot of bees on the flowers (although none posed for photos this week) and later on the birds like the seeds.

Ready for the bees

Finally the hot weather arrives. No rain so I make sure the plants are regularly watered in prolonged dry spells. I also apply an high potash, liquid feed.

Apart from keeping the slugs away (I use pellets) and weeding, there doesn’t seem to be much else to do. The rubbish weather in spring and early summer means that I don’t even need to water them. I give them one feed of Maxicrop in mid May, but otherwise they are left to their own devices.

And here I hit upon another snag. Because the raised beds are in the back corner of the garden, which faces SE, the majority of incident sunlight comes from the right side of the plants. I notice in late May that they have all developed a lean.

Leaning onions

I read that the top exhibition growers use rings to hold the foliage vertical, and I wished I had thought of that when planting out. Anyway, in June I make my own rings out of 3mm fencing wire and try to persuade the onions to stand more upright. My understanding is that the bulbs really begin to swell after the longest day, so I want to make sure that the feeding of the bulbs from the foliage is evenly distributed. This could be complete myth but I think it is worth a try. Consequently, some of the onions now looked a little bedraggled and abused.

In addition to the onions which are misshapen, those at the back of the beds are suffering from reduced ambient light and attack from slugs. These weaker plants will never make show quality and so I’m down to about 14 onions to choose from.