Copyright derryjournal
One of the questions that might come to mind when thinking about growing garlic and onions is: why bother? Both are relatively cheap to buy in stores. But like all vegetables, those instore may have travelled a long distance to get there and may lose some of their nutritional benefit over time. You also don't often know if they have been treated with chemicals unless buying organic. Most people know that garlic is very good for you but it's less well known that onions also contain high levels of beneficial antioxidants and vitamins and can help with everything from digestion and inflammation to boosting the immune system. Garlic meanwhile has a multitude of health benefits that have been recognised and recorded for thousands of years. In both cases, the fresher they are the more potent they are and you can't get any fresher than growing in your own garden, cutting out food miles and carbon footprint in the process. And both are relatively easy to grow. When it comes to gardening, it's always worth seeking out courses, gardening groups and community projects in your area as they are invaluable for providing expert knowledge and advice. I've attended a few free events on soil health and planting this year, including a tutorial a few weeks ago organised by Spraoi agus Sport in Carndonagh Garden Centre on planting onions and garlic, so much of the following is thanks to the knowledge picked up there. When it comes to garlic, there are two types - soft neck, which has a longer storage life, and hard neck, which can be tougher through winter but usually has less cloves and doesn’t store as well. Hard neck, unlike softneck, produces a flower stem which is often eaten. Good hardy varieties for Ireland include softneck garlic such as Germidour, Messidrome, and Sabadrome and hardneck Morado, Kingsland Wight and Precosem. It turns out that cloves from shop bought bulbs are not really a good choice for planting out as they are often treated with radiation to prevent them sprouting in storage and transport. This can lead to cloves not growing at all and less likelihood of big harvests. Instead, head to your local garden centre and pick up some garlic bulbs and onion sets there as these will have been grown organically and will be the varieties known to be hardy in our climate. Both onions and garlic can be grown in the ground, raised beds or in containers. Make sure to plant them the right way up, with the bit with the root at the bottom and the thinner pointed end at the top. Keeping the dry outer garlic skin attached while planting can help protect the clove in its early stages. Plant garlic cloves around 15 cms (six inches) apart. For onions aim for around 10 cms apart. For garlic cloves you want to plant them so that the tips are at least three centimetres below the surface of the soil. For onions, aim for a more shallow depth with the tip either just a few millimetres above or just below the soil line. Once you have them spaced out, firmly anchored in place and covered over, the only thing to do is water over them lightly. You may want to protect them by bringing them into an unheated shed or greenhouse or throwing gardening fleece over them if a prolonged hard frost is forecast this winter or if you notice the birds pecking at new shoots. You'll know when the garlic is ready to harvest when most of the bottom leaves begin to yellow, dry and die back. Similarly with onions when the green shots flop and begin to wither, it's time to carefully prick them out not by the stems but from underneath. If you want to store them, wait till the leaves dry out completely. Store both immediately somewhere dry and out of sunlight. Now that you know your onions, why not give it a shot?
