G, one of our valued customers gave my husband some unwanted root trainers a few weeks ago. G would not be seen dead in the other kind of trainers - when we see him out and about on his errands he is suited in tweed and cap with matching shiny brown brogues.
Plastic root trainers are assembled in fours, have an elongated shape about the length of my finger and are hinged. The idea is that when it is time to plant out or to pot on the plants you unhinge the root trainers and have compact blocks of compost with healthily rooted plants which are easier to handle. My husband took them down to our large greenhouse.
M stuffed sieved compost into ten sets of root trainers preparatory to sowing onion seed. She indicated that this was somewhat fiddly and time-consuming task, more to G's liking than hers. We persevered. I sowed four seeds of early Onion Ailsa Craig per plastic container. We filled them all and placed them in an old plastic drawer. Then we cut up a discarded plastic bag and pegged it over the top to retain warmth and moisture.
This is my second attempt at growing onions from seed. My Japanese onions (see earlier post) have continued to grow outside in our mild, wet winter and are now the size of large spring onions or small leeks. I would usually buy onion sets - immature onions that have been specially treated and grow to maturity when planted out in late spring. This season I am going to try the old-fashioned way. A bit like G, really. Let's see if it works.
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