Missing onions...

Miss_Ratty

Hi there,

I have a really puzzling problem. After planting out my onion sets...all 250 of them...I surrounded it with netting to stop the birds picking them out of the ground. I went up to the allotment, and they have all gone!! :mad: What could possibly have happened? They look like they have literally been lifted out of the ground, yet no birds could have accessed, and there is no sign of burrowing. How disheartening!! My garlic is still there, so I don't think it's thievery!

Anyone have any ideas and ways to stop it happening in future??

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

valk_scot

When I plant out onion sets I make sure they're right down into and under the soil surface, then they're less likely to be pulled out by birds and they won't push themselves out of the soil as the roots start to grow. So no need for netting of any sort.

I'm at a loss as to how to explain every one of 250 sets vanishing though. Birds tend to throw the sets around a bit. Were the nets disturbed at all? By humans perhaps?

Lotus-eater

It has to have been a person, I can't explain it, but there is no other explanation.

Miss_Ratty

The nets weren't disturbed at all, the bricks holding the netting down were even in the same place, and the garlic and spring onions right next to them hadn't been touched?

DaftyDuck

Mice, or rats; they'll take onions, and they'll get in through a tiny, tiny hole. They "tidied up" all my sweet pea seeds a few months ago; didn't miss a single one, and I planted two per pot, sixty pots in all. They got the lot!



(..... I didn't even notice the O.P.'s handle until I looked back. I still think a small mammal got them, but I ain't blamin' you, O.P.!!!)

splodger_seedswapper

when did you plant them?
did they have any growth on them - before they dissappeared?
has your plot been waterlogged?