Advice for a hopeless gardener

[GillyBee]

They look like the ones in my veg rack that missed the usual planting time and which I may throw in a pot to try to get them to grow as a late season set of "Christmas" spuds - i.e. ready in October but left alone to harvest at Christmas.

[jennyjj01]

I made carrots . Ask me if I care that they are wonky
It was expected. I never thinned them.

[jennyjj01]

A few questions for onion growing preppers, especially Jansman...
Q1. I found what I believe to be an allium leaf miner larva in a couple of the spring onions. How can I control that if it's also already found its way into my perennial tree onions?

We ( wife does it now) simply get clusters of seeds,sepearate and plant. If you feel they are needing a new home,move them. Snap them off and the new plant grows ,and the old one too. Tough plants!

Thank Jansman.
Agreed they are resilient little things. Reading up, I reckon I can hardly go wrong.

Any thoughts on the leaf miner issue, though? Couldn't that be a show stopper if it spreads?

I'm pretty sure they were some kind of leaf miner in the spring onions. I saw the red streak and even dug out the the pupae
https://www.rhs.org.uk/biodiversity/allium-leaf-miner

Advice is to rotate crops and cover with mesh, but rotation is a bit out of order for a perennial.

Bloomin' critters. Is nothing safe?

Sad to confirm, some damned creature has leaf mined and decimated my tree onions!

I'd noticed that of the established onions, the tops went brown. The latest generation were dying before creating treetop bulbs, and of the treetop bulbs that were there, many were tiny.
So today, I snapped off one of the old dying ones. Horrified to find it full of what looked like recently dead, full size insects.

I've sowed a dozen or so saved bulbules in compost in the hope they're uninfected.

Apart from starting again from those, any

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suggestions?

[GillyBee]

What a nightmare! Allium Leaf miner maybe? https://www.rhs.org.uk/biodiversity/allium-leaf-miner

[jennyjj01]

What a nightmare! Allium Leaf miner maybe? https://www.rhs.org.uk/biodiversity/allium-leaf-miner

Yes. It's surely that. I'd found some of those red streaks and black specks in nearby located garlic ( or it might have been spring onions )
Pointless trying to keep it out with nets, now that raised bed is infected.

I'm repeatedly told that these tree onions are robust. I'm hopeful that this can be managed somehow, by removing infected foliage. The critters don't seem to have burrowed down into the bulbs.

[jennyjj01]

Much joy today: I harvested most of the spuds in my compost tardis's About 4kg.

There were a few much bigger than my fist, and they were clean and unblemished, which was surprising considering the compost is seething with bugs, slugs, snails and worms. Some went towards tonight's tea and they were noticeably more flavoursome than the cheap shop bought ones that I usually get. These had been sown from leftover veg rack orphans.

This marvelous harvest from plants that had ZERO care and attention. Never watered. FAR better than what my allotment effort yielded.

[GillyBee]

Compost does seem to be magical stuff. I had a result like that form my Tromboncino squash planted on a half rotted heap last year. Far better than the one in a half barrel full of supposedly well rotted commercial manure baased compost.

I dug the whole heap out this year and have another one in the dug out pile I have not yet spread and it is proving the first to crop this year too.

[jennyjj01]

What a nightmare! Allium Leaf miner maybe? https://www.rhs.org.uk/biodiversity/allium-leaf-miner

Yes. It's surely that. I'd found some of those red streaks and black specks in nearby located garlic ( or it might have been spring onions )
Pointless trying to keep it out with nets, now that raised bed is infected.

I'm repeatedly told that these tree onions are robust. I'm hopeful that this can be managed somehow, by removing infected foliage. The critters don't seem to have burrowed down into the bulbs.

This has set me back years

Today I dug out all my tree onions. The bigger older ones, from my first generation were up to about golf ball sized and the stalks were brown and riddled with larvae. I've chopped a few open to see if the bulbs were infected and I reckon they are not. Still, I dumped the obviously infected onions.

So, I've now salvaged about 20 smaller bulblets, half of which I've set in fresh compost and half of which I'm experimentally freezing in the hope of killing larvae but not destroying the bulbs. They'll be sown separately from the unfrozen ones.

These leaf miners are a 5h1t! I guess I need to womble some net curtains.

[jennyjj01]

So, I've now salvaged about 20 smaller bulblets, ... half of which I'm experimentally freezing in the hope of killing larvae but not destroying the bulbs.

As I expected. the thawed bulblets are very much softened and probably are not going to be viable. I'll pop them in some compost, but I expect they'll just rot.

The ones I sowed in compost look healthy at the moment.

RIP my little triffid babies.

[GillyBee]

Penn State agricultural experts are suggesting solarisation of infected beds to clear allium leaf miner. That suggests that a suitable heat treatment might kill them off in the bulb too. (Similar to the way heat treated onion sets are created)
Or just plant in compost and keep an eye out for any white lines or puncture marks suggesting infection and trash those sharpish......