How to plant onions

Onions are a great crop to try  - they're easy to plant and taste so much better when you grow them yourself!

You can grow onions from seed but it's far easier and you will have more success by growing onion 'sets'.  These are basically little, immature onions that are planted singly and each will grow into a full-size onion.

These days there is a good selection of onion sets so go for a variety that best suits your purpose - this year I planted 'Santero', a white onion which stores well, and 'Red Baron', which also stores well, since I like to have onions last me throughout the winter months.

So, for onion crop success:

1. Choose the right place and time... a sunny spot that where you didn't grow the onion family last year and where it has not been manured in the past several months (this can cause onions to rot) is the first thing to consider.  Your onion bed can be just onions or combined with other crops from the onion (allium) family, including shallots, garlic and leeks. Their companion plant (if you are into such things) is mint, which deters onion fly!  The time to plant onions is from mid-March to mid-April depending on how far north you live.

2. Prep the bed ... once you have chosen which bed to use, dig it over with a garden fork, to 1.5 x the depth of the fork.  Remove any weeds or larger rocks.  If you have any compost (either homemade or bought) add around one bucketful for each meter square. Then add a small handful / 1 oz Growmore or similar fertiliser and dig in.  Rake over so that the bed is even.

3. Mark your rows ... if you like!  I am the type of person who likes the idea of nice, neat rows and I also like to have a guide of where I've planted (plus I have a touch of the obsessive!) so I mark out my rows with string tied to little black plastic stakes.  Rows should be 30 cm (12 in) apart and the sets themselves should be planted 12cm (5in) apart.

4. Plant the sets ...sets can be round or teardrop shaped but either way, plant with the pointy tip facing up.  Gently push your sets into the soil, leaving the tip just visible above the soil and firm gently around each one.

5.  Protect your onions ... birds can think that the paper-y top at the tip of the sets is a worm and so like to pull them up, which is super annoying so, to avoid this, I put 2 foot stakes around the edges of the bed and cover the whole lot with netting - nothing fancy - and secure around the edge with rocks or bricks.