Clear up tomatoes before planting your onions, says Gayton gardener Jamie Marsh

It’s getting noticeably darker and darker every evening and the nights are pulling in, and with the unmistakable chill in the air the garden hasn’t been the most pleasant place to be - but as always there’s lots to do on the plot.

Tidying is a huge part of the jobs that need to be done at the moment, and to be a bit more specific, clearing out the, now blight-ridden outside tomatoes, is right at the top of the list.

This year I had eight or nine different varieties of tomatoes outside, which I pretty much left to their own devices, apart from a bit of watering as and when needed. Unlike the tomato plants in the greenhouse, which were fed, trimmed and tended to like newborn babies.

You may be surprised but the yield from the outside plants was 400% more than inside.

The plants grown in the greenhouse were kept tidy, side shoots removed and they were rained to grow up a cane or a string. The outside ones did their own thing and grew into bushes and sprouted trusses from side shoots which I didn’t remove.

So yes, they definitely had way more fruit on them, but the downsides were, the space needed to grow the plants was so much more and the fruit came a lot later, which was good in one way, because between the two different growing spaces I had a succession of tomatoes, but in the end, when blight hit there were lots of green tomatoes wasted outside. I will definitely look at growing more like this next year, but will find a way of growing them up instead of out.

Back to the tidying, all I do is cut the tomato stalks as low to the ground as I can, leaving the roots in place. This way I’m disturbing the soil as little as possible, then everything goes onto the compost heap, trimming up some of the bigger stalks first.

Also this week I’ve planted my onion and shallot sets. I’ve planted mine into 3cm cell trays as I’ve got some work on the beds outside to do before I can plant anything in them.

Fill your cell trays with peat-free compost and pop one onion set into each cell and firm it in. Give them a bit of a water and put them somewhere where they will get lots of light. I will plant them out probably in early spring, but if unlike me your beds are ready to plant in, get them in now.

When planting outside just remember a few things, space the sets out well. Remember, these will grow into a full-size onion, so I would plant them 4” apart. Another tip is to plant them deeper outside - just leave a tiny part of the top of the set showing or even put them in just below the surface, because I’ve known the inquisitive birds to come along and pull them all out. Make sure your ground is free-draining because the sets will rot if left sitting in waterlogged soil for too long.

These autumn-sown onions should be ready to harvest in June, probably six weeks earlier than if you plant in the spring.

Don’t forget you can see what I’m getting up to on the plot by following me on Instagram. Go to @jamies_little_allotment or you can email me with any questions to Jamieslittleallotment@gmail.co.uk