Look at this photo. Tell me what you see. Do you see some tasty looking spring onions? Big, fat and bursting with flavour, deep red and beautiful? Do you? Is that what you see?
Well my friend, you are WRONG. I don’t mean to be rude, but you are looking at failure.
A couple of posts ago I eulogised the allium family, praising their versatility and beauty –providers not just of statuesque flowers, but also first rate herbs and vegetables. Unfortunately it appears that one particular member of said family let the praise go to their head and took their eye off the ball. You’re looking at the results above.
I planted a crop of red onion sets back in the spring and sat back waiting for rows of tennis ball-sized bulbs to push themselves up out of the soil. But then I made the mistake of prematurely congratulating them and they promptly stopped trying.
The bulbs were looking elegant in the raised bed and then I noticed the danger signs; little seed heads forming at the top of the tall green spikes. Instead of concentrating hard on growing the bulb at their base they had decided that was too much like hard work. No, being a vegetable was too good for my onions, it seems. They wanted to be flowers.
Such aspiration is bad news for the vegetable gardener. Once the flowers pop out the plant sees the home straight. Its job is done, it can die safe in the knowledge that it has produced seeds to spawn the next generation. And this in turn means that the bulb stops growing and starts slowly deteriorating.
So pretty flowers in the vegetable patch means no more onions. It’s not a disaster, because in their semi-grown state they do make rather grand spring onions, but it’s not quite the crop of daddy-sized onions I had planned.
There’s a moral in here somewhere. It seems that positive reinforcement and encouragement are not always the right approach. Some vegetables will let it go to their head. From now on when I talk to my plants in the greenhouse of an evening I shall be whispering veiled threats and waving bottles of industrial-strength weed killer. No more praise until they come up with the goods.
And then I shall pay them the greatest compliment I know. I shall eat them.
On the ipod while preaching tough love: Carly Simon / You’re so vain. Nuff said.
The drooling vegetable 
June 11, 2009 at 5:11 pm
Oh my goodness, I am sorry to hear that. I shall have to take a closer look at mine this weekend.
Look on the bright side though, if you leave some of the red onions in, the wildlife that fly by will love the seed heads. I know, I know it’s not much consolation…
June 12, 2009 at 4:30 pm
And, as always, you picked the perfect soundtrack for this perfectly discouraging development. Visiting your blog makes me feel not so alone in the world of garden “surprises.”