It happens regularly, I drift away from blogging about the garden because I’m OUT in the garden all the time I’m not working! (Note: gardening, even chain-gang style busting up rocks to plant trees around here never counts as “work” to me. Family and friends have gently let me know this feeling is not universally shared…)
OK, so I’m not really in the garden “all” the time because it’s so hot mid-day to mid-afternoon that there’s a long retreat time that would be perfect for blogging…but ahhh, what can compete with a summer nap? Not much.
Meanwhile the onions are in. And I must say, an onion harvest like the one above, makes me feel RICH.
It took me a long time to figure out that onion love rich soil and never being too dry or too wet. They look tougher than that to me so for years, my onions were pretty small. But get the soil and the watering down and onions really plump up well.
While “too wet” was the theme of May, the raised bed must have saved them because they look pretty good. The pics above are from June 5th. I planted these quite early — the last of Feb I think — in a heavily mulched bed because I had to plant *something* or go winter crazy! Turns out they seem to like that and I’ll try it again next year.
I let them cure in the sun for a day since rain was expected the next. Normally you would let them cure a few days in the sun, with the green tops somewhat over the bulbs to protect them from sunburn. I had to hurry, so after their day in the sun, they were moved to a dry & shady open porch to finish curing. Still, because of all that rain in May, I wouldn’t expect these guys to keep as long as usual, so we’ll be using LOTS of onions this summer and fall. If they don’t store well, I will chop them and freeze in typical recipe portions to be easily grabbed when needed for any cooked dish or soup.
—A Larrapin Garden www.larrapin.us
Posts most wednesdays & weekends —except during garden season and then I just don’t know! But you can subscribe by Email here. You can also get bonus links and recipes by “liking” our Facebook fan page at www.facebook.com/larrapin.garden. Geesh, we’re even on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LarrapinGarden. If you have good onion growing tips, please leave a comment and tell me about it!
