Hercules v Sturons

A slightly disappointing onion crop. Although they all looked great on the surface, a significant number of onions had rotted in the ground - 42 of the 200 (so 20% of the crop) have been chucked away. The vast majority of these are the Hercules variety, which although having produced some real monsters, have not matched the Sturon for reliability and quality. The Sturons, although not as good as last year's crop, look pretty uniform and solid.

So I declare Sturon the winner!

They will get grown for a third year running next season and go up against a different variety. If this was Onion Pop Idol, I'd be Simon Trowel.

Thieving magpies

Popped up the allotment last night to deliver an old bookcase for storage use in the shed to discover some thieving **** has stolen a dozen brand new patio slabs that I had nestled against the shed. They were acting as weights to prevent said shed from taking off in the wind and the plan was to lay them as a path this Autumn. That's £40-50 worth shipped off-site I suspect, as my plot is right next to one of the carpark areas, meaning it would be very easy for somone to back their car up near my shed and quickly wang the slabs in the boot without too much attention.

The offenders were good enough though to leave one of the slabs behind to prop the shed door shut. How kind!

This week's top job is to harvest our white onion crop - I have about 200 Centurion and Sturon awaiting lifting. If it's not raining this evening I plan to get them up, out and drying.

Question: What can I pop in the gap they will leave? Anything that might still give me an Autumn crop? Chard? Beetroot? Turnips? Salad onions, radishes & leaves?