Spring Onions and New Onion Beds

What exactly are spring onions? Well...you don't plant them in the spring. You plant them in the fall and eat them in the spring. I just learned this last summer and decided to try it. I planted them in small cells. Several seeds to a cell. When they had good roots, I transplanted them to the garden on a nice fall day, where they grew slowly all winter. At the first signs of spring, they started growing much faster and soon became nice clumps of green spring onions. We have been enjoying them for a couple of months, only bringing in the amount we would soon use. Now I will harvest the rest and maybe slice them and freeze them. I don't want to lose a single onion, they are so good. I will plant Spring Onions from now on. 

Yesterday I planted my big keeper onions. I am trying Patterson this year. They are supposed to be a lot like Copra, which I have loved. Now Copra seems to be scarce or gone. You can barely see the little green shoots. Later I will show you how much they have grown.

I plant keeper onions individually because I want them to get large. There are a few Walla Wallas in these rows too. Walla Wallas are wonderful, but they are not keepers. Patterson onions are supposed to keep well into March. We will see.

 You can see that we are using a good weed barrier now. We have so much bindweed to cope with.

Bye for now from me and one of my Swedish Flower hens. This one is named Dahlia. The other is Zinnia. Truth be known...I can barely tell them apart. 

My New Cattle Panel Tunnel Greenhouse

I Named It 'The Salad House'

When our son came to visit in Feb. 2021, he and his father built me a wonderful place to garden. Here are some photos of its beginnings. 

Now, in April, we are eating delightful, delicious salads from The Salad House. I plant in sturdy plastic tubs that sit on concrete blocks two high with boards running across to support the containers. We filled with our own mixture of soil and planted lettuce, radishes, green onions, bok choy, kohlrabi, dwarf peas and strawberries, Now I am adding cucumbers, Minnesota Midget melons, two large tubs of sweet potatoes, egg plant and peppers. 

I am planning to add more photos as I go along. Everything in this special place will be an experiment for me. I will try to show the failures as well as the wins.