Giant onion 2015 results

Well it’s now 3 days after the show and only just getting time to post the results.

I estimated the onion would reach around 18″ by show day. I got up nice and early to dig up the last onion and prep the rest of my veg. A final measure of the onion after digging it up gave me a final measurement of 18.25″, smashing my personal best of 14.25″. A quick weigh and the final weight was 3lb 6oz. I have to admit although smashing my PB I was a little disappointed that it didnt weight more as it seemed far bigger than anything i’ve grown before.

Anyway, I tied up 3 of my matching onions for the set of 3 class, along with my other veg and headed off to the show.

I took the following:

3 sets of 3 potatoes
2 sets of 2 parsnips
2 sets of 3 carrots (one stump rooted and one long set)
1 set of 3 onions
2 sets of 4 tomatoes
1 longest runner bean
1 heaviest onion

So, as I arrived there were 3 or 4 onions already benched, 1 of which was my uncles and was clearly heavier than mine. I knew beforehand he had some beauties so wasnt expecting to win but had hoped for a place. At the time mine was larger than the rest until someone else dropped one in bigger. Then 10 mins from closing time (I had my fingers crossed for a 3rd place), a guy comes in and drops 2 x 8lb’ers, clearly larger than anyone elses by far. So no place for me and my uncle having to settle for 3rd. Heres a pic of my biggest…

So the rest of my hopes were pinned on the rest of the veg, and I wasnt disappointed. The set of 3 onions looked mint all tied up and benched, and all measured at 16″ circumference. I had to settle for 2nd place here though as my uncle again outdid me with a set of 3 larger ones, and he also got ‘best in show veg’ award for his set. First pic is of mine, and then another of mine at the side of his…

Onto the carrots I got 1st place…they all measured 11″ long…

The second set of carrots (stumped) didnt do anything but my 2 sets of parsnips got me another 1st and 2nd. The laongest parsnip measured a whopping 35″ long. Biggest I’ve ever grown…they were an absolute nightmare to pull up, and personal I think the ones that came 2nd were better but I had damaged the tops slightly when trying to get them out…

The onto the potatoes I managed another 2nd and 3rd, losing yet again to my uncle who claimed 1st…

So overall I’m chuffed at all the places I got, but it looks like its back to the drawing board if I’ve got to compete with 8lb onions

Bring on 2016 \o/

03/08/15 – Just under 2 weeks until show day

With less than 2 weeks left until show day it was time to get stuck into some work in the garden. So yesterday I cracked on.

I gave all the onions a final measure to help me decide which one to leave in the ground for the ‘heaviest onion’ class. The scores on the doors were…

The largest onion of the 12 measured in at 17.25″ in circumference. Over the past week this one onion gained only 0.75″. But with all the others only growing 0.25-0.5″ this one was the obvious choice to leave in. It seems to grow 0.25″ less each week, so if I can get it to put on 0.5″ this week, and then 0.25″ next week, I’m hoping to scrape it to 18″ circumference.

Here’s a pic of the big boy…

I pulled up 7 of the other onions which were large enough, and similar in size and shape to maybe get a decent set of 3. Out of the 7 there were 3 measuring bang on 16.25″ each, and very similar in shape so these are looking like my set at the moment. I chopped the tops off them all, peeled back any broken skins, chopped off the roots and gave them all a rinse. I’ve placed them on some kitchen roll on a window sill to start drying out, and will turn them slowly each day to give an even colouring. Going from left to right, the 2nd, 3rd, 5th and 6th are matching up well…

Weighing up one of these onions has already confirmed I beat my heaviest onion last year so my mission objective has been achieved. I will weigh the largest one a week on Friday when I lift it and share the final weights/sizes.

Over on the other veg, I’ve just cut all the potato plants foliage off just leaving a few inches of the stalk. I’ll leave the bags undisturbed now until show day to let the potato skins set and harden a little…

The tomato plants are doing well. Last week I cut a lot of the leaves and foliage off to allow the sunlight to get to the fruits to assist ripening. 4 or 5 of the tomatoes have ripened now and the rest of the green ones are just starting to take a hint of orange so they should ripen up perfect for a week on Saturday. The only problem with some of these is that some of the tomatoes have grown huge, some are almost the size of apples and I’m not sure if large tomatoes are what judges look for in this class…

I have a feeling they will be too big so we’ll have to see whats left to work with closer to the date. I’ll probably be able to get a set of 4 large ones, and a set of 4 medium ones and then see which gets judged best.

Pulled up my 5 garlic plants tonight. Very poor. It’s the first time I’ve grown garlic so wasn’t expecting much. I think I simply planted them into the ground too late in the season and resulted in small bulbs. Next year I’ll get them in 3 months earlier than this year and see how that does them.

The runner beans have come on loads. I’ve not mentioned these before as I was extremely late sowing them, and up until 2 weeks ago there were no signs of any flowers so I’d pretty much written any runner bean entries off. But looking at them tonight there are now some small runner beans developing, maybe 2-3″ long. There are 10 plants, so 5 of these I will attempt a giant long runner bean. I’ve chopped all the hands of beans down to just 2 beans per hand, in hope that the plant will put all its effort into quickly growing these few beans. The other 5 plants I will try and get a set of 6 good shaped beans from. Similar the other plants I’ve limited the hands to fewer beans but left 5 beans on the hands of these plants. Any that show signs of bending, blemishes or going misshapen will be cut off straight away.

Not long now, 12 days and counting.

28/07/15 – End of July Giant Onion Update

Update on the progress of the giant onions.

The last 2 weeks growth has started to really slow down now. The week before last they averaged just over 1″ circumference growth for the week, and last week they were averaging just under 1″ so doubt theres much left for them to do now.

The largest 6 onions measure in at 16.5″, 2 x 15.75″, 15.5″ and 2 x 14.5″.

Only 2 and a half weeks left until show day so got to make some decisions this Saturday of which of all the onions I am going to leave in the ground to keep growing, and which to pull up and allow to start drying out for the dressed set of 3.

With only a handful that will match in size and shape I can only leave 1 in the ground to continue growing, which looks like the 16.5″ one as this one still did grow an inch the previous week. Might get lucky and be able to scrape it up to 18″.

With my previous personal best onion measuring at 14.25″ circumference and weighing 2.25lb I think I can safely say I’ve already beaten this with at least 6 of my onions this year, and I’ve already got some ideas for next year of how I think I can hit the 20″+ circumference.

Heres some pics…

The biggest one so far, 16.5″ circumference beside a 4″ pot…

A shot of the bed with a few of the biggest ones in…

Over on the other veg, the tomatoes are just starting to change colour now, should ripen perfectly for in 2 weeks time. To aid the process I’ve cut a lot of the foliage back to allow plenty of light to the fruits and started watering at double dose of fertiliser.

Found swarms of green and black fly on my carrots and parsnips so I’ve have to spray these as the new leaves were just starting to come through but then get hammered by the flies and dying off. Apart from that they look well and some carrot tops started pushing up out the soil so I had to re-cover these will soil. The ones I saw looked good at the top end but its whats underneath that counts. I will wait until the night before the show to pull these up.

Potatoes have been flowering for a week now so at the weekend I will chop all the stalks/foliage off down to the bags, and leave them to dry for 2 weeks to get a good skin to set.

Cherry tomatoes are only just setting at the flowers so I cant see any of these being ready to enter at the show.

05/07/15 – July Giant Onion Attempt Update

OMG how much time does a baby take up lol, I’ve had no time at all to write up any proper blogs, however I have kept on top of maintaining my veg growing efforts and snapping a few pics along the way.

Anyway, here’s where we are at as of today. 12 onions went into the growing bed initially, and as I suspected it was too many for the size of the bed. As soon as the leaves started growing thick and large the onions towards the back and left corners started to have the light blocked and fell behind in size from the front ones.

I started measuring the circumferences from 17th May to track how they were doing. The first couple of weeks they were putting on between 1/2″ and 1″ per week girth. After that they started to pick up and put on anything between 1″ to 2.5″ per week in girth depending where they were positioned on the bed.

The last 2 weeks I have started to add some Tomato feed to their waterings to see if this will increase the growth. Heres a pic of the whole bed…

The picture doesn’t really do them any justice, they are way bigger than they look, or at least I think so lol. As you can see the ones at the back left and front left are still yet to swell properly, not enough light getting to these areas.

Heres a piccie of the biggest so far, circumference as of this morning was 13.25″. This one has put on 1.75″ to 2.25″ each week for the last 4 weeks so fingers crossed it will continue at this rate for a few more weeks.

The next best 4 measure at 13″, 12.75″, 11.75″ and 11.5″ so hopefuly between these 5 I will have a good set of 3 to put in a couple of local shows.

Anyone who’s interested in other veg, I have topped my 4 tomato plants after the 4th truss, and reduced the trusses down to 4 tomatos per truss, all have set and range from cherry tomato size to full size, but still green and yet to ripen.

The parsips and carrots have gone wild, I’m particularly impressed with how well the parsnips have grown (above ground at least) lol. Remember I set these off in cardboard loo rolls indoors intitally and then planted out at a couple of inch tall so will be really interested to see how these have done when I pull them up. They may well have forked from the disturbance but we’ll see…

Potatoes just starting to flower….

And the little experiment I was trying with stump rooted carrots grown in some cut up drain pipes…

That’s about all for now, I’ll try and keep on top of the updates over the next few weeks as we run into show season

🙂

13/05/15 – May Giant Onion Attempt Update

Some more pics from May that I didn’t have time to post, this was around the time they started really thickening up at the bases…

Heres a couple with measures for an idea of size…

Total height of the plants were in excess of 25″, and measuring 4″ around the base of the largest ones.

Last pic of the one looking the largest so far. Was only watering these once a week, around 10 litres spread over the whole bed.

22/04/15 – April Giant Onion Update

A few pics of the onions from April that I didn’t have time to post…

A picture of the largest so far, and a shot of the whole bed.

14/03/15 – March Update on the Giant Onions

Well it’s been a busy few weeks getting everything ready and all the preparations for the other veg I’m going to be growing this year. But I finally got around to sorting the onions. My tube heater for the greenhouse arrive sometime at the beginning of March, so I wired this up to a thermostat in the greenhouse. I set it straight to 12C and took a reading of the temperatures first thing every morning and last thing on an evening for a week to see how well the heater was working. During the very cold frosty nights the temperature was getting down to 6/7C in the raised beds by early morning, but then was easily hitting 12C+ during the daylight. I was hoping the temp wouldn’t drop below 10C but I decided to go for it anyway and get them planted out, as long as the frost doesn’t get in then I’m happy.

I was really restricted for space in the raised bed after I measured it out, I think 12 plants is too much in the area but I have nowhere else they can go. Maybe I should have sacrificed 2 or 4 onions to make more room for the others but by the time I’d realised they were already planted, so we’ll see how they go.

 

There’s a couple of pics when I planted them out. You can just about see the green tube heater on the left pic attached to the front of the boxing in, forgot to take some proper pics of this when I was fitting and wiring it up. Going to leave the supports on until we get some decent sun and the leaves thicken and strengthen up a bit, then I’ll probably add some more rows of the canes going the opposite direction to act as supports.

Over on the other veg, the Cappricia F1 tomatoes all shrivelled up and died for some reason, so I ordered some Panovy F1’s to see if they fair any better, they are just at the 2 leaf stage now. Carrots and parsnips outgrew the cardboard loo rolls too quick (the roots started folding in the bottom) so I had to ditch them and start over, will have to get these into their final spots pretty soon after germination this time as the roots seem to grow twice as quick as the leaves. And still no sign of the ghost chillis germinating Kestrel seed potatoes arrived last week so I’m now just waiting for some poly pots to be delivered with the aim of getting these planted out mid April.

So aside from the Cappricia tomatoes we’re still all good. Will post some close ups of the best onions so far when I get chance over the weekend.

25/02/15 – Picked out my final 12 plants

The last couple of weeks have seen the onions throw out loads of new leaves and continue to grow and thicken up. The lighting is still set to 12 hours per day in the grow chamber and this should come to line up with our daylight hours in a week or 2. As the grow chamber was becoming really cramped full of leaves and plants I’ve done my final selection down to my best 12 plants, which will be the 12 I plant in the onion bed in my greenhouse in a couple of weeks.

Heres a pic of my best 12…

Turned over the soil in the soil bed the other night and its all breaking up nicely.

The plan is to wire up my greenhouse heater and thermostat this weekend and get that switched on asap so I can monitor the temperatures on the colder nights and see how warm the heater keeps it. I’m hoping that it can maintain a minimum 12 Celcius and if it does I will be planting them out probably the 2nd week into March as they are desperate for some natural light now.

Here’s a pic of the best 5, and then a closer one of the biggest so far…

 

So all going good still so far. Can’t wait to get them out into the ground and under natural light to see how they come on then.

Over on the tomato front, got a few coming through now, just about to send out their 2nd set of leaves. Think I got 6 or 7 germinate out of 9 seeds.

No sign of any parsnips or chillis coming through yet though, although I have been told that this variety of parsnip and chilli can take 3-4 weeks so fingers crossed for them.

Couple of little shoots just showing from the carrot seeds…

Planted these in the cardboard toilet roll inserts to start off. Sowed 3 seeds per roll, with the intention of thinning to the best 1 when they are a couple of inch tall. Trying a little experiment of starting them off in these cardboard rolls indoors for the first couple of weeks, then I intend to plant the whole lot (cardboard insert included) straight into the barrels, where hopefully the cardboard will just deteriorate and leave the plant and root undisturbed to grow deep down in the barrels. I emptied all the sand in the barrels last weekend, gave it all a mix up and then filled them back up and watered well ready for these to go in when ready.

Will post some pics and an update when hopefully I get the onions into the ground in a couple of weeks.

06/02/15 – February Onion Update

Well the onions are still flying away. Due to the lack of room in the grow chamber I’ve had to pick out the best 15 plants and stick the rest on a window sill to make room for my tomatoes and chillis, which I sowed a couple of days ago. Decided on Cappricia F1 tomatoes which I am told are the new Cedrico which I won a local show with last year, and giving the slightly spicy Ghost Chillis a go haha.

Really needed to make room in there anyway as all the leaves were starting to thicken and so many plants tight together was starting to restrict the light. I have noticed they are starting to go a bit leggy which I think is simply down to them being in desperate need of some natural light. Unfortunately it’s going to be a good few weeks yet until I can get them outside. I have ordered a 150w electric greenhouse tube heater, and plan to get the greenhouse insulated with bubble wrap either this weekend or next in hope that I can get the onions out maybe 2-3 weeks earlier than I was planning. The sooner I get it insulated the sooner I can monitor the night time temps in there and see how cool it drops with a heater going. If I can manage to keep it above 10C on frosty nights I’ll get them planted out then.

Anyway here’s some pics of the progress, the best 5 plants at present…

Thats a 5 litre watering can to give an idea of size. And this is the biggest/thickest one so far…

Lets see if the going stays good into March, fingers crossed.

18/01/15 – Giant Onions repotted

Noticed the roots of the onions were starting to come through the bottom of the 4″ pots and I had a spare few hours so I decided to pot some of the best onions on. Due to lack of space I ordered some new pots which were the same size in width and length, but were twice as deep and hold 1.4 litres of soil. I was hoping for the onions to last another few weeks in these initial pots until February at least but I had no chance so bit the bullet and cracked on.

Potted on the best 15 plants into the deeper pots with the same compost mixture I used initially. Here’s the best 5 so far and one of the best one so far….

That’s a 2 litre milk bottle to give you an idea of size.

I had been watering once a week but when potting on I noticed the compost inside the pots was still quite wet and saturated 6 days after watering. I don’t want to keep them this moist so I’m going to hold back to watering once every 2 weeks now with the same amount of water. Might even add a little liquid feed to the water every other watering.

All still in the grow chamber with lights at 16hrs per day.

Still got some of the late starters in there which will probably end up outside or in pots in the greenhouse and grown for a smaller matching set at show.

Around the 31st January I’ll reduce the lighting to 12 hours a day.

Starting to think about what other plants I’m going to set off soon too. Thinking tomatoes and chillies will be set off going beginning of Feb in place of the smaller onions that get put to one side.

On a side note I keep reading other peoples blogs and advice and everyone seems to think that white reflects more light than silver foil? Maybe next year I’ll try white glossing the inside of the grow chamber in place of the foil and see how that works out.