Advice for a hopeless gardener

[jansman]

Each year there is success and failure in the garden. My climbing beans are starting to move now,but they have been incredibly slow. So too,my squashes,but they’ll get there.

Looks like ALL my onion sets have bolted. Got thick stems, lots of leaves and bulbous lumps on top. Bugger all Onion in the ground.

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=how+do+you+st ... n2lvniS_Ms

DAMN!

When I used to grow onion sets I bought heat treated one from Marshalls Seeds at Wisbech. The treatment prevented bolting pretty much. Fen Giant was the variety, but not cheap. Unfortunately, it is thought that sets can introduce white rot, and boy, my ground has white rot. I did grow plants ( Santero F1) and they were fairly resistant. Now I grow perennials, Welsh onion , chives and Egyptian onions.

[jennyjj01]

Looks like ALL my onion sets have bolted. Got thick stems, lots of leaves and bulbous lumps on top. Bugger all Onion in the ground.

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=how+do+you+st ... n2lvniS_Ms

DAMN!

Unfortunately, it is thought that sets can introduce white rot, and boy, my ground has white rot. I did grow plants ( Santero F1) and they were fairly resistant. Now I grow perennials, Welsh onion , chives and Egyptian onions.

OMG. I just googled white rot. It's EVIL
"... is effectively impossible to eliminate once it has been introduced...
Chemical control
There are no chemical treatments against this disease or for soil sterilisation available to UK gardeners."

That would devastate me., especially after last years blight.
I think I'll be careful only to buy the best sets next time, not from the cheaper shops

[GillyBee]

I found a very interesting article years ago from an organic garlic growers association in California which details a research based way of controlling white rot that is practical for anyone. The problem is that you have can't use it if you have any onion family growing in the ground.
In a nutshell:
White rot spores "germinate" when they sense the allicin chemical in the ground and go hunting for an onion root to infect. If they don't find one they die.
So if you repeatedly dig in garlic power or water with onion tea when the temperature is about right the spores all germinate and die. The researcher reckoned you would get 70% of the spores each time the treament was used. Doing this spring and autumn in a 4 year rotation would let you plant your onions safely on the 4th year.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a ... 4018367136

[jennyjj01]

I found a very interesting article years ago from an organic garlic growers association in California which details a research based way of controlling white rot that is practical for anyone. The problem is that you have can't use it if you have any onion family growing in the ground.
In a nutshell:
White rot spores "germinate" when they sense the allicin chemical in the ground and go hunting for an onion root to infect. If they don't find one they die.
So if you repeatedly dig in garlic power or water with onion tea when the temperature is about right the spores all germinate and die. The researcher reckoned you would get 70% of the spores each time the treament was used. Doing this spring and autumn in a 4 year rotation would let you plant your onions safely on the 4th year.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a ... 4018367136

Brilliant, if it works.

"Almost all allotments are infected to some degree or other although many gardens have no infection at all. " dammit!
https://www.gardenfocused.co.uk/fruitar ... allium.php

[jansman]

Looks like ALL my onion sets have bolted. Got thick stems, lots of leaves and bulbous lumps on top. Bugger all Onion in the ground.

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=how+do+you+st ... n2lvniS_Ms

DAMN!

Unfortunately, it is thought that sets can introduce white rot, and boy, my ground has white rot. I did grow plants ( Santero F1) and they were fairly resistant. Now I grow perennials, Welsh onion , chives and Egyptian onions.

OMG. I just googled white rot. It's EVIL
"... is effectively impossible to eliminate once it has been introduced...
Chemical control
There are no chemical treatments against this disease or for soil sterilisation available to UK gardeners."

That would devastate me., especially after last years blight.
I think I'll be careful only to buy the best sets next time, not from the cheaper shops

That’s horticulture. I am gradually moving over to perennials.The aforementioned onions. Apples,pears and plums. Raspberries.Rhubarb and Jerusalem artichokes.Daubentons kale and miners lettuce. Perpetual spinach ( I let it seed then smash the stalks,and up it comes again.The same can be done with bolted lettuce. I have herbs; lovage,rosemary,sage,mint,of course! There’s Sorrel ( makes an awesome soup), nasturtium. I have even ‘perennialised’ spuds. Last year the straw yard I kept my fowls on, I shoved spuds under ( ala Ruth Stout). The yield was fair, and the ‘volunteers’ have sprouted. It will be a crop of sorts with zero work. That’ll do me!

[jansman]

I found a very interesting article years ago from an organic garlic growers association in California which details a research based way of controlling white rot that is practical for anyone. The problem is that you have can't use it if you have any onion family growing in the ground.
In a nutshell:
White rot spores "germinate" when they sense the allicin chemical in the ground and go hunting for an onion root to infect. If they don't find one they die.
So if you repeatedly dig in garlic power or water with onion tea when the temperature is about right the spores all germinate and die. The researcher reckoned you would get 70% of the spores each time the treament was used. Doing this spring and autumn in a 4 year rotation would let you plant your onions safely on the 4th year.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a ... 4018367136

I saw this. I kept a space free for three years and did the above.Nah! It’s interesting though that the perennials are free of rot.

[GillyBee]

It is interesting to hear that it didn't work - explains why it isn't in every gardening forum. I thought it might be because it didn't involve spending money on agrochemicals. I used it when I had an allotment but I only had a very light level of white rot so could not really tell if it made a lot of difference or not.

[jennyjj01]

Hey Jansman,
How do you pick the time to harvest your bucket of carrots. Mine are Amsterdam forcing too.
There looks to be a lot of greenery and ONE carrot in particular has shot up like a tree. I don't want to pull them up just as they start to plump up, but i don't want to be too late either.
I've had a feel around in the soil and I can't feel much carrot at all. I'm being impatient again, aren't I.

Your thoughts?

WAIT! The foliage will get much lusher, trust me. Look again end of July. Then sow again at that time. They will stand the Winter, and we had them at Christmas.

LOL. I had a Carrot Cuckoo in the nest!!!!!

Looking closer at my bucket of carrots, I'd been pleased that one of the carrot tops was far and away bigger than the rest. I was anticipating harvesting that one carrot first. But tonight, looking closer, I saw tiny flowers, and the leaves were different..... It was only a bl0066y weed. From the various pics online, I suspect it was a big strong Yarrow weed. So, Out it came! Darned interloper!. I'd been nurturing it with my baby carrots. If you look closely you can see it towards the right in my original photo

[GillyBee]

Hi Jenny

Some plant ID 101 for feather plants. They are not always easy to tell apart Hopefully the photos will show up properly and help.

Yarrow leaf and bud https://www.wildfooduk.com/edible-wild-plants/yarrow/
Cornflower

Cosmos seedling
Fennel in another pot

Did your weed smell of aniseed when you pulled it out? If so then it was fennel and can be used in cooking. There are green and bronze versions. Mine is bronze.
Yarrow is a useful herbal remedy.Technically it is a weed but there is a nice red flowered version available from garden centres under the name Achillea that is both herbal and pretty.

[jennyjj01]

Hi Jenny

Some plant ID 101 for feather plants. They are not always easy to tell apart Hopefully the photos will show up properly and help.

Yarrow leaf and bud https://www.wildfooduk.com/edible-wild-plants/yarrow/
Cornflower

Cosmos seedling
Fennel in another pot

Did your weed smell of aniseed when you pulled it out? If so then it was fennel and can be used in cooking. There are green and bronze versions. Mine is bronze.
Yarrow is a useful herbal remedy.Technically it is a weed but there is a nice red flowered version available from garden centres under the name Achillea that is both herbal and pretty.

Thanks, Never noticed the smell. Hollow stem and little yellow.green flowers.
I'm 50:50 on it being yarrow. But it's academic, really. It just wasn't carrot, so it had to go. It pulled out easily and cleanly enough, so no harm done. One long tap root.