Kem Ormond’s vegetable garden: Sowing onions and planting strawberries

A splendid string of onions at Kem Ormond's house.

Kem Ormond is a features writer for The Country. She’s also a keen gardener. This week, she’s busy sowing onion seeds into trays and preparing the ground for strawberries.

OPINION

I will admit I am not a winter person; give me a roasting hot summer’s day and I can work outside for hours, but winter, no, it is not to my liking.

In my household, we have had a few garden groups visit the main garden, and I always feel sad that my vegetable garden looks a bit unloved at this time of the year.

The soil is cold, there are cover crops, but no bright sunflowers or garden beds filled to the brim with sumptuous vegetables.

The one thing I must keep reminding myself is that winter is a time for your vegetable beds to have a rest.

They work hard during summer, providing us with ample produce to get us through the colder months.

In saying that, my leeks are producing well, and there have been quite a few chicken and leek pies made in my household.

I have peas flowering at the moment, cauliflower, cabbage and broccoli are forming good-sized heads, spring onions are in abundance and I have an extremely large crop of parsley.

Onions

Kem Ormond's newly planted onion seed trays on the deck.

I have my brown and red onion seeds already planted in my seed boxes, and they will be ready to plant out at the beginning of September.

It will take at least three weeks for the seed to germinate, and then they have their growing to do.

I have put my newly planted seed trays on my small sunny deck and have covered them with netting.

A heat pad for your onion seeds may be taken over by a feline friend at this time of year.

I do have a heat pad in one of my shade houses, but at this time of the year, one of my cats takes ownership, and I know what would happen if I placed my seed trays in his favoured spot.

Yes, I do shut the door, but he has learnt to slide it open!

The downside about sowing seed early, even in seed trays, is whether your soil will be pliable enough to dig over when the onion plants are ready to be planted out.

I have raised beds and particularly good soil, so I manage to get my onions in early, but if your soil is heavy, you may have to plant out a little later.

Onions are such a good vegetable to grow because, come winter, you could have your supply all neatly strung up, ready to use.

Strawberries

It's time to think about strawberries. Photo / 123RF

Now is the time to start thinking about strawberries because the earlier you get your strawberries planted, the better chance you have of a bumper crop!

They like to be planted in a sunny spot and don’t mind being in a pot, as long as you feed and water them regularly.

Strawberries do not like to compete for space, so give them at least 30cm of depth in the soil and at least 40cm between each row of plants.

They do not like wet feet, so planting them in small mounds will help prevent the soil from becoming too damp.

They love some barley straw to be placed around them to stop the weeds and to keep them snug.

As tough as it might seem, by picking the first flowers that come up on your strawberry plants, you will promote better growth.

This is also a great time to keep an eye out for any bugs or insects, too.

When flowers appear, your plant will require the energy to focus on producing healthy fruit, and they do love a good feed of potash.

You need to take off the runners that will eventually appear.

These can be planted elsewhere.

A young strawberry plant will not fruit as well if the runners aren’t removed, as they use up too much energy from the plant.

It is a clever idea to plant strawberry plants with different fruiting habits.

I think trialling a few different varieties of any vegetable is a great idea, as this gives you the opportunity to work out what grows better under your conditions and what you like better.

Happy gardening!