Just recently all the activities at the plot have not been very photogenic. There's been path maintainance (weedkilling, grassstrimming and I have sourced some bricks for building up of the the internal path) Otherwise the weeding has started to become a necessity. So my weekly hour or two at the plot has become a wrench between planting and sowing, and maintainance tasks.
To make up here is a retrospective on my onion experiment. The patch has had just a few casualties, but the area under the wire netting has had considerably better results than those in the open. I think the extra shelter afforded by the frame might also have helped increase the rate of growth. Here's a couple of examples of the phenomenon I previously described.
These are not lost causes as a bit of excavation and replanting can re-establish them, but there was evidence of at least one being completely uprooted and deposited in a neighbouring bed. I suspect others have disappeared completely. So some animal is tugging them out. Probably a bird, but maybe a mouse or other rodent.
There have been some losses from the broad bean rows as well, but somehow I am more accepting of this and plant some extras to transplant into the gaps
Also there are tell-tale notches notches out of the leaves suggesting there are bean weavils at work, but the plants are robust enough to shrug off this minor damage. I will keep an eye on them.
