September is the month when you start to see bare patches on your allotment as you harvest and dig up this season’s plants. But worry not, there’s still things you can plant out during the autumn months and first up is autumn onion sets.
Onion sets are immature onions which have been lifted and dried to stop any further growth. You can buy several varieties from the members’ shop now. We have Radar, Shakespeare and Blood Red available.
Plant them out now and water well and they will then resume growing over the winter months. Autumn sets are hardy so no need to worry about protecting them from frosts etc.
The sets can either be planted direct into the ground, just push them in root end first so just the tops are showing approx. 4″ – 6″ apart.
Or they can be started off in modules with compost and planted out once the top growth is a few inches high.
Either way, I like to protect mine from being pulled up by pigeons until they have established themselves by covering them with a mesh tunnel.
Autumn planted sets are usually ready for harvesting a short time before spring planted sets, so I find it’s a good way of spreading the harvesting season. Once harvested, onions store well. Just string them up and hang in a shed or bin store in my case.