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I will / I won't grow that again ... 2018

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  • kleipieperkleipieper Posts: 563
    I think you're too late for cheap onions already Dove.
    Germany and Belgium are having the same trouble we're having here
    Here in Holland ordinary, run of the mill onions sell for around 1 euro per kg at the moment, compared to 40 or 50 cents this time last year. And special ones, like red onions or chalots are even more expensive.

    But why on earth would you freeze onions?
    They store perfectly well, in a cool, dark place.
    I always grow my own and this year I used the last ones in June.
    New harvest drying as we speak. A bit smaller than usual, but still a good harvest, which should see me through winter.
  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 88,147
    We can't guarantee a cool dark place ... the garage isn't too bad in cold weather ... but at the moment it's pretty warm ... it has a flat roof and gets the afternoon sun.  I'm hoping my brother will be kind and keep me well supplied ... but that means a 2 hour trip there and back to fetch onions from his store  ;)



    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





  • kleipieperkleipieper Posts: 563
    In that case I hope that prices won't go up to dizzying heights, or he may be tempted to sell to the highest bidder.
    Lovely picture though.
  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 88,147
    He's probably tied into contract prices ... most farmers are ...  :/

    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 88,147
    He was explaining yesterday that one of the big problems this year has been flea beetles ... they've been damaging the crops and it's been impossible to use any of the acceptable treatments because it removes the protective surface on the onion leaves and they then get scalded by the sun in the extreme conditions we've been having. 

    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





  • kleipieperkleipieper Posts: 563
    I hope for your brother that his harvest isn't dramatically smaller this year because of all the troubles.
    That extreme weather is causing all sorts of trouble for farmers.
    A huge company here in The Netherlands, which grows those little snack tomatoes, or whatever they call them, grows all of them in huge greenhouses and even they had real problems when the temperatures went over 35 degrees. A whole load of their tomatoes got problems with tough and wrinkly skins and weren't up to standard anymore. They have all their stuff well ensured, but they didn't want to throw over 6 million of those little tomatoes away. They first asked the local food bank if they wanted some, but they declined because they weren't packaged!
    They then offered them for free to the general public. That gave an amazing insight into people's greed. There were huge queues and people showed up with huge containers. I saw on the news that some turned up with plastic baby baths or even cleaned out wheely bins! One woman told that she had bought a tub of those tomatoes in the supermarket and when she heard about the offer for free ones, she took hers back to the shop, and joined the que at the growers the following day with a large bucket.
  • kleipieperkleipieper Posts: 563
    To return to the original purpose of this thread...
    I'm very glad that I didn't grow any red onions this year, because they would never have survived this hot, dry weather.
    Glad that I planted double my normal amount of shalots though. I wouldn't ever want to be without them!
  • Hostafan1Hostafan1 Posts: 34,889
    I remember one year when we were in India, the national shame of them having to buy onions from Pakistan.
    Devon.
  • herbaceousherbaceous Posts: 2,318
    I have carrots! Never been successful despite trying many suggestions from this forum but this year -



    I have 1sq metre less the bald patch where a manky cat poohed. Oh frabjous day, callooh, callay.

    Next year going to see if I can repeat this success and also try a beetroot called 'Boldor' recommended by Dove and looking v delicious.

    I have carrots!
    "The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it."  Sir Terry Pratchett
  • FireFire Posts: 19,096
    edited August 2018
    kleipieper, [as a side note, I remember one summer an ice cream seller in Finsbury park, North London had a power outage and was giving away all the ice cream before it melted. It pretty much created gridlock. People were running and yelling in the street. You would have thought the apocalypse had arrived. It reminded me of those scenes in Ikea where parents fight each other to get to this season's "loving kindness teddy bear".]
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