Granny Mouse Country House & Spa, with its serene and picturesque
location along the Lions River, is known for its beautiful garden
setting and its fabulous food, offered in the Bistro and superb Eaves
restaurant.
“We love that our beautiful setting inspires our guests to find their
inner green thumb and start creating their own works of art in their
gardens, whether it’s planting florals or creating a vegetable garden.
It fills our heart tank to know that our gardens are appreciated and
the cause of inspiration,” says Sean Granger, General Manager of
Granny Mouse.
Take onions, for example, a staple of innumerable delicious dishes.
Growing onions is straightforward, although they are one of the
‘longest’ crops, taking anything from 4-7 months from sowing to
harvesting. This represents quite an investment in time, space and
resources, but it means that you can grow varieties that are not
always available in the supermarket.
You can grow them in seed trays, and plant out in 4-6 weeks. Sow the
seed at a depth approximately three times the diameter of the seed-
best planted at soil temperatures between 8°C and 30°C.
Onions can also be bought as young plants (sets or seedlings) from
garden shops/nurseries to plant straight into garden beds. Onion bulbs
should sit on the surface of the soil. Space plants 5 – 10 cm apart.
Do not cover.
By July onions are halfway, or more, through their growing season and
it is from that point onwards that the crop really requires attention.
Onions are generally disease and pest resistant and, although the
growing period is long, they just need regular watering, especially
during the first few months of growth, and fertilising. Success,
however, depends on one thing: planting the right onion for the right
area.
Onions need a certain number of daylight hours and particular
temperatures before they will begin to form bulbs. There are ‘short
day’ cultivars, others that are classified as ‘intermediate’, and
still others as ‘long day’. ‘Short day’ cultivars such as ‘Texas
Grano’, ‘Hanna’, ‘San’, ‘Shahar’ and ‘Red Creole’ are best planted in
the area from Musina in the north down as far as Bloemfontein. The
best sowing time is from February to the end of March.
‘Intermediate’ cultivars, such as ‘Australian Brown Skin’, are best
sown from Kimberly downwards, including the Western Cape. The best
sowing time is from April to the end of May.
‘Red Creole’ (short day) and ‘Hanna’ (hybrid) can also be grown in the
areas suitable for intermediate cultivars – from Kimberly downwards,
and again from April to the end of May.
Fresh Seed Required
Onion seed tends to deteriorate as soon as a seed packet is opened, so
it is necessary to buy fresh onion seed each year. If you have any
seed left over from last year, rather use it for spring onions so that
a lower germination rate is not so disappointing. Spring onions are
simply the seedling stage of bulb onions.
Soil Requirements
Onions like soil that drains well. Heavy, or clay soils, should be
avoided or made more friable with the addition of compost. Because
onions are such a long crop, include an organic fertiliser (3:1:5) in
the soil preparation. Once the bed has been tilled, rake it to remove
any stones or clods of soil so that the texture is very fine. Don’t
plant onions in a bed where other alliums have been grown in the past
three years.
Watering
Water regularly and feed monthly during the warm autumn months, and
keep beds weed-free so that the onions don’t have to compete for
sunlight and nutrition.
Feeding
From August, as the weather starts to warm up, feed with a
potassium-rich fertiliser like 3:1:5, or a liquid fertiliser. If the
leaves start turning yellow at the tips it is an indication of a
potassium shortage and not the onset of maturity. Do not use
nitrogen-rich fertilisers as this can produce thicker necks, which
don’t dry out properly and create an entry point for pathogens that
can result in rotting later.
Harvest Schedule
When the leaves start to turn yellow and fall over to one side it is
an indication that the final phase of maturation has started, so taper
off the watering. Once most of your onions have ‘fallen’ then dig them
up and allow the leaves to dry out before storing the bulbs. If dug up
before then the bulbs may not have formed sufficiently, and they may
not store successfully. Harvest times vary from region to region:
• July to August in very warm, frost-free areas such as Musina,
Lowveld, parts of KwaZulu-Natal, and Dendron.
• September to October in warmer areas of Gauteng, North West, Limpopo
and KwaZulu- Natal Midlands.
• October to November in cooler areas of Gauteng, Free State and Northern Cape.
• November to December in Western Cape.
Harvesting And Storage
Great care needs to be taken when harvesting onions so that they have
a long storage life. Onions are not as tough as they look and can be
easily bruised or damaged when dug up. Leave the onions on top of the
beds for about two days to dry out in the sun. In very hot areas place
straw or leaves over them to afford some protection from sunburn. If
it is raining put the onions under cover to dry out. Once they have
dried, store them in a cool, dry place where there is plenty of air
movement.
Compatible with, and can grow beside lemon balm, borage, carrots,
beets, silverbeet, lettuce and amaranth. Avoid growing close to peas
and beans.
SPRING ONIONS
These are bunching onions that don’t form big bulbs.
Growing tips: Sow them directly in situ, or in seed trays and then
transplant all year round, except for the hottest mid-summer and the
coldest mid-winter months. They like full sun, fertile soil and
regular moisture. Harvest when young for the best flavour. If you
leave a few to go to seed, they produce white flower heads that bees
and butterflies love and will happily seed themselves. Look out for
seeds of red varieties, such as Red Rum, to add interest to your
salads.
