Funny onions

Anyone reading this who either knows me, or takes the Derby Telegraph, will know that I am crap with plants.

Great with animals. But utterly crap with plants.

I can nurture any animal well past what would be considered its normal sell-by-date. Creatures in my care really do enjoy "a good innings" before going off to the big stable/kennel/fish bowl in the sky.

But I'm terrible with plants; I garden and I garden and nothing grows. Or it tries to grow and then withers and dies. Or it looks promising and then gets eaten by snails. I bought a house with a big-ish garden at the end of 2011 and spent the whole of last year cultivating it, only to harvest a grand total of three very small onions, five spuds and a couple of mint leaves. It was nothing short of pathetic. I can't even grown herbs on my windowsill. Seedlings fail to sprout and shop-bought plants take on a suicidal brown tinge within hours of entering the house.

However, in my drive to avoid Tesco and Morrisons I really do need become more successful in growing my own, so as well as being My Year Without Supermarkets I also want 2013 to be the year when I finally turn my fingers green.

I began sewing the seeds this morning - literally. Although it's technically mid-winter, my month-by-month (supposedly idiot-proof) gardening guidebook suggests that onion seeds can be planted in January. And it hints that herbs can pretty much flourish all year on a warm windowsill. So I've sown a small tray of white onion and a couple of pots of parsley.

For those who've never tried growing anything from seed, its a fiddly business and it mucks up your nails. Or rather - you get muck under your nails. As I understand it (and hey, chances are I'm doing this completely wrong) you fill a tray with compost, pretty much spreading a crumble of the brown stuff all over your work surface and yourself into the bargain, water it until it looks like a mud pie and starts leaking out from the bottom of the tray - at which point you start swearing as you remember that you ought to have sat it on top of something first - sprinkle your seeds as evenly spaced out as you can (or can't!), add a thin layer of compost over the top and then "mist" with one of those fine sprays.

So that's what I've done and I did get a momentary feeling of satisfaction when I settled my newly-planted tray onto the top of a Tesco carrier bag on the windowsill in the utility room. I can feel the promise of new life positively radiating from that little tray, so please send some karmic good wishes to my onion seeds, or say a little prayer for them if you're of religious persuasion. They are going to need all the help they can get in my care....