Onion experiments
As a gardener, I have a hard
nose and a green thumb. In other words, I tell my plants "sink or
swim" and --- mostly --- they swim.
Which is all a long way
of explaining why I transplanted my onion
seedlings into the
garden this week even though they really aren't ready for the cold
weather that's yet to come. I hedged my bets by putting half of
the seedlings under a quick
hoop, then tempted
fate by planting the rest of the seedlings out in the open. I
figure that if the baby onions with no protection thrive, I will have
figured out the easiest method to get good onions from seed in our
climate --- start seeds in a flat and then put them out in the garden
when they have two leaves. I'm willing to risk some seedlings in
pursuit of long term laziness.
Of course, all that
experimentation isn't what I'm hanging our hopes of a summer onion crop
on. I direct-seeded another 200 seeds under the quick hoop and
yet another 200 out in the open. I figure that by the end of this
spring, I'll have tried most of the possible permutations for onion
seedling growing and will have chosen a method to use in following
years.
Meanwhile, my nectarine
tree thinks I might just get lucky this year with my transplanted
onions. The tree is already in the green bud stage, which means
she's counting on no
weather colder than 21 degrees so that she can keep 90% of her fruit. Here's hoping she's
right.
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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