Onions

Looking east both fields in front of you are growing onions. With market gardening proving less profitable by the 1990s, farmers started to shift to crops such as onions. These fields grow a wide variety of onions: red and brown, pickling onions, round and banana shallots.

To give an earlier harvest, some are sown as sets (small bulbs), rather than waiting for seeds to germinate.

Some are sown September-October so that they are growing over winter to be harvested the following July. The majority of the onions are sown in February to March for harvest later in August and September.

The onions grown in these fields are sold in most supermarkets all across the country, as well as supplying wholesale markets and local farm shops. You can know by onions, and other produce such as bird food, from the Parrish’s online shop.

In front of you there is a tree avenue, planted in 1990 and made up of a variety of different species including rowan, ash, field maple, and silver birch.

You will also see the landscape rise up towards the Greensand Ridge and Sandy, with areas of pasture and woodland on the steep slopes.