Planting sets the easy way to grow onions

I think it was planting onion sets that gave me the confidence many, many years ago that I could successfully garden. Of course, that's not saying much, because onion sets are just about as fail-proof a crop as one could plant. Easy or not, planting onion sets offers a quick and effortless way to obtain spring "scallion" greens, and while left in the ground to fully grow, sets will form into mid-sized onions later on in the season.

There are many ways to grow onions, each with a distinct advantage and disadvantage. In my garden I use both sets and onion plants that were started from seed in February. Sets can go into the ground as soon as the soil is workable and it's a good idea to space out plantings every few weeks up until midsummer. The sets I planted this weekend will follow the crop that was planted in early April.

Sets are basically young onions whose growth was interrupted just as they were forming bulbs. You'll find sets at most garden centers, typically sold by the pound. I suggest you purchase at least two pounds in order to have a moderate-sized harvest. The one disadvantage with sets is the lack of variety — most of the time all that you will find are the basic yellow, white or red varieties. They are fine, though I prefer to purchase specific varieties such as Stuttgarter riesen, which always seems to perform extremely well in the garden. A good tip to remember when selecting onion sets is that smaller is better. The larger sets always end up producing

onions that do not store well, so try and avoid them.

All onions are voracious feeders, so I fortify their raised beds with 5 pounds of 5-10-5 for every 100 square feet of garden soil. Then I rake the bed smooth and rig a straight line across to keep the rows even. Planting the sets is as simple as pushing the bulbs into the ground with a finger so that they are just below the soil line. It's a tedious job to plant several hundred small bulbs, but a rewarding one, as they sprout through the soil in a perfect line.

While sets produce wonderfully tasting greens and tender sweet onions, it is the young onion plants from seed that will produce the largest onions, ones that are best suited for long-term winter storage. Onions are characterized by day-length. Long-day onion varieties quit forming green tops and begin to form bulbs when day-length reaches 14 to 16 hours, while short-day onions will start making bulbs much earlier in the year, when there are only 10 to 12 hours of daylight. As a general rule, it is the long-day onions that do better in our New England region.

I've learned that when it comes to onion plants, while they can survive cold spring weather, they are much better off left in the protected environment of

the coldframe until the weather settles a bit during the month of May. Since these are the onions that I will allow to fully develop into large- sized onions, I'm sure to follow the same regime of fertilizing the bed prior to planting as I do with the sets. The difference here is that I also incorporate some "triple superphosphate" granular fertilizer into the soil as well, which greatly enhances the size of the onion that will eventually be harvested.

Since the onion plants were grown in the tightly cramped quarters of a four-inch pot, the easiest way to get the tangled roots separated without damage is to submerge the entire pot into a pail of cold water. This not only keeps the vulnerable seedlings from drying out while I'm planting, but the water helps separate the tangled roots with very little damage.

I use my homemade PVC plastic planting board, which has a sharp beveled edge on one side to slice a perfectly straight and deep row in the soil. The onion plants are set about two inches apart in rows about eight inches apart. Afterwards, the plants will get a drink of a transplant solution (20-20-20 liquid fertilizer) and will be off and growing in no time.

Lastly, I'll also continue to direct seed "bunching" onions, or scallions, which grow quickly and provide plenty of fast and easily-grown onion greens throughout the summer.

KOHLRABI A MUST In England, kohlrabi is a crop that is fed to cattle as part of their regular diet, but here in my garden this is one spring crop that I eagerly look forward to harvesting and eating. Kohlrabi's flavor is awfully hard to describe, yet when it is perfectly fresh, it reminds me of just-picked corn, especially when it is bathed in butter and salted.

My first experience with kohlrabi was about 30 years ago and it was while eating my grandmother's chicken soup. It wasn't a guaranteed ingredient in her soup, though, because she would never use store-bought kohlrabi, preferring to wait for the fresh-picked variety from her garden.

I can't blame her, either, because I don't care how fresh store-bought kohlrabi might be, it is a crop that quickly loses its flavor and moisture soon after it is picked. Kohlrabi matures in as little as 45 days, so I try and squeeze several small plantings in so that the crop is ready for harvesting before hot weather ruins the flavor of this mild turnip-like vegetable. I'll sow the seeds about a quarter-inch deep and about two inches apart. I may thin them out a bit later on, harvesting golf ball- sized "rabis," while allow the remaining to grow no large than a tennis ball. This crop is a perfect example of a very poor store-bought vegetable that is truly delicious and buttery when it's fresh from the garden.

LAVENDER WOES I keep hearing many, many complaints and questions about growing lavender, and the seemingly difficulty many gardeners have with this perennial herb. Common lavender, English lavender and Lavendula angustifolia (L. officinalis, L. vera, and L. spica) are wonderful garden additions, not only for their violet-blue to deep purple flowers that bloom in early summer, but for their excellent foliage, which adds a nice contrast in the garden.

In talking to many of these gardeners, the same "problem" seems to be occurring; that is, gardeners are paying far too much attention to soil and fertilizing than they should.Lavender requires full sun, and a rather poor soil (poor, as in sandyish, rocky and with little organic matter) that is well drained. A soil that is acid also isn't good, since they enjoy a fairly alkaline soil environment. While lavender will survive most winters, it isn't the hardiest of plants and can sustain quite a bit of winterkill if the plants are not properly protected with a layer of mulch. In this particular case, less care, even some "plant negligence" is the best plan of action with lavender.

FROM THE MAILBAG

Q: I love the color of ageratum and I've been informed that there is actually a hardy version of this flower. Is it true and can it be grown here? — H. Ness, Easton

A: There sure is a hardy version of the common "floss-flower" or annual ageratum and it is a welcome contrast in color, as it blooms only during the fall. Mist Flower produces dense, four-inch heady of misty lavender-blue flowers that resemble a looser and taller version of the popular annual ageratum. The plants, however, can become rather large and tend to spread fairly rapidly. They are perhaps best grown in an informal or naturalistic garden because they do have a tendency to roam and flop.