It is winter, time to hibernate and spend more time indoors over the coming months. This is a good time to highlight the role of climate and its impact on what grows in the garden.
Just like humans, some plants like the warm weather and some plants like the cool weather. Many of the fruit and vegetable plants commonly eaten and enjoyed have originated from all over the world in different countries and climates.
Plants are classified in plant families and plants in the allium family, namely onion and garlic, grow very similar to each other. By planting them prior to winter, this ensures they are in early enough to allow them to grow slowly over the cool weather of winter, giving them the right conditions to bulb when the weather becomes warmer in spring.
Plant onion from seed or seedlings and the grass like leaves will grow slowly over winter. When planting, gently separate each blade-like seedling allowing space for them to grow. Just like in the story of the hare and the tortoise, a radish grows fast like a hare, but an onion grows slow like a tortoise, so do not be in a hurry to cook your favourite food which includes your home-grown onion.
The leaves grow thicker and the onion bulbs out of the ground when the weather becomes warmer in spring. When the outside skin of the onion has dried it is ready to harvest. Make sure to keep one onion in the ground, or if you accidentally wait too long to harvest, it will grow a long stem and a ball like flower with tiny petals all over it. This ball shaped flower will then grow hundreds of tiny black seeds, so you can dry them, collect them and have them to plant and grow more onion seedlings over the next winter.
Garlic needs the same climatic conditions to grow. A bulb of garlic can be broken into cloves of garlic and instead of making your favourite garlic bread with these cloves, plant them in the garden prior to winter and before the winter solstice. Make sure to plant the cloves far enough apart, so after the leaves have grown slowly over winter, there is enough room for the garlic to bulb under the ground when the weather becomes warmer in spring. The garlic bulbs will be ready to harvest when the leaves have dried.
Keep both the onion and garlic in a cool dry place and enjoy eating them over summer and ensure you save one bulb of garlic to grow more the next winter.
It is the end and the beginning……….
Here is what you need to get growing in winter:
- Book – Gaye the Garden Girl, the Allium family
- Packet of onion seeds
- Onion seedlings, white, brown and red onions
- Bulb of garlic