Allotments 4 All

Hi all,

Very excited down here in the South East - about to harvest my first crop as a first year allotmenteer. :D

My overwintered onions are 'beauties' according to one very nice man on our site.

My question though is what crops can I follow onions with? It will take a few weeks to clear the bed as I've heard they don't store very well.

I'd like to thank everybody here for the invaluable advice I've picked up on this site.

I've been an A4All voyeur for some time and thought it was about time I posted as I was starting to fell a little sordid :D

Tony.

In my rotation alliums are followed by legumes.  However (not this year only started in Jan) I am going to plant my over wintering onions in next years onion bed (where potatoes are now - leeks are going to follow my first earlies) so they will probably be followed by salad crops and other things that do not mind being out of the rotation as they will be spare space until the rest of the alliums are cleared.

I am removing my onions and some garlic that is ready and in their place are going whitloof, salads and another row of peas!  ;D

Hooray for witloof!

I'm starting mine off in bog rolls this year...

Thanks for the suggestions. Salads will be ideal I reckon. I think I'll try some Pak Choi seeds I've got too.

But I have to ask - what the ..... is whitloof/witloof?

Many thanks,

Tony.

Witloof chicory is what's often sold as 'chicory' in shrink wrapped supermarket packets. Although chicory is in fact a diverse range of wonderful plants.

Basically Witloof is a big ugly thing grown for its big ugly tap root. You sow about now and harvest in Autumn. You then cut all the leaves off and trim the root and stick it in a pot of soil or spent compost. At this point I stick another pot over the top which has been lined with tin foil and bung it under the greenhouse staging. Although anywhere warmish will do.

The point is to (re)grow a tight, blanched head of sweet & crispy leaves. Why bother? Well, you will get a supply of salad leaves in the depths of winter. And you will save an absolute packet on supermarket prices.

You can do something similar with dandelions and seakale if you want to be very clever. And there's another chicory root called Soncino which is treated in the same way.

Probably best not to mention chicory again as I can go on for hours...!

Yum!  Witloof, once forced, produces a bullet of peppery palest green, almost white leaves, crunchy, yet waxy and delish dipped in mayo and munched, or used like little boats with yuumy fillings in like egg mayo, or tuna flakes, or just on their own, or, best of all in my humble opinion, in between 2 slabs of soft home made white bread, thickly buttered, with a sprinkling of salt and a grind of pepper!  Pay lots of money for them in the supermarket, and yet they are so easy, and so tasty, and I have the lovely Ina to thank for pointing me in the right direction last year!  ;D