Bangs For Your Buck

Very American I know, but I quite like the phrase. It's very apt for many plants on the plot. You plant one runner bean seed and you get shedloads in return. Likewise for courgettes, potatoes, squash, and tomatoes, one seed will reward you many times over. I like that, getting plenty of bangs for your buck.

Then there's onions. You plant one onion set and you get.... one onion.
Does this one onion taste any better than those you can buy in the shops? I mean, can you REALLY tell the difference like you can with other produce? I'm not convinced.
But, onions are expensive, so they're worth doing. Ah, there's a flaw in this argument too. Onions are cheap.

Mmm, so do I grow onions? Not really. Well, technically yes, but not really.

I certainly don't 'grow' onion sets - plonking baby onions in the ground and waiting for them to get bigger. Whoop de do. That's not growing, not in my book.

That's like buying some beer from the supermarket, looking after it for a bit, then pouring it into your glass claiming you've made beer. Yeah right.

I'm partial to a pickled onion you see, so I do like to grow my own, but I do mine from seed. They take time, but if you're doing it from seed, at least you can claim them as your own.

I sow a silverskin variety I picked up in France and they are dead easy to do. Stick the seed in the ground in mid/late August and leave them to it. They will germinate and establish before autumn sets in. All I do is thin them out prior to winter. Then, in February, I transplant them in their final position and wait for them to grow.

At this time of year. when there's not much effectively growing on the plot, it's encouraging to see the little blighters waiting to swell...