October Onion and Garlic Report

Yesterday, i weeded the onion/garlic patch, leaving the onion shoots I saw in place. Actually, I had been weeding all along ever since I planted and the first sprouts came up, but I had left the weeds in place in the areas between each sprout. So, yesterday, i just cleaned the whole bed free of weeds and grass. I counted about 50 sprouts. Given that I planted to grow about 150, I'm not feeling entirely successful.
I had added new seeds to some of the area before I left for Northern Ireland a couple of weeks ago. But it really hasn't rained since and I haven't watered. As far as I know, these seeds are still just sitting in the ground. I watered after I weeded yesterday, so perhaps new sprouts will emerge. I can be patient and will continue watering now that I am home.

It occurred to me this morning that my strategy could use a little adapting. When I planted earlier I went through an elaborate strategy to glue seeds to napkins. For my pre-Irish catch-up, I just sprinkled seeds. Of course, getting seeds requires breaking open pods, which is also laborious. Today I thought, why not just plant the pods? There are probably (someone should really know for sure) 4 to 6 seeds in each pod. That's how nature probably does it; keeps the seeds in the pod until they sprout. So I took 50 seed pods (pictured) and planted them directly in the soil. I know where I planted them so we will see how they sprout.

I can think of two additional reasons (other than ease) for keeping seeds in the pods and just planting the pods. First, taking the seeds out of the pods might be damaging to the seeds. You often have to crush to pods to break the seeds loose, which might cause harm to the seeds. Second, the way pods are constructed, it would seem that they have a natural ability to trap just a little bit of moisture. This may be important for germination.

Garlics on the other hand have sprouted well. Of the 32 cloves I planted, 31 have come up. I will have more garlic than I can use, but there are always friends and other gardeners.

Garlic and Onions

I only planted 8 cloves of Chet's red garlic last fall. Only 7 came up. Of those, I did something with 5, leaving just 2 for planting this fall. The ones from the previous season had sprouted this spring, and I planted a number of them. I harvested all of the spring planting, leaving none of them for seed for the coming year. Of the 2 garlic that I set aside for planting, I was able to get about 40 cloves. I kept 32 of them for my own garden and gave the remainder to my friend Steve at church.

I planted the 32 during the week. Nothing has come up yet. I don't need them all to sprout, but I am glad to keep the variety growing in my garden.

Last fall, I scattered onion seed in one of my beds. I think my reasoning had been that trying to plant the year before in prespecified positions hadn't worked well. The sprouting was spotty. But there were two problems last year. First, there were just too many onions that sprouted. Second, I think all the seed came from first-year plants, meaning that for what is supposed to be a biannual, there was no "bi" in when the plants went to seed. As a result, just about every onion in my garden went to seed again this year. Essentially, my onions became annuals.

This year, I am attempting to solve both problems. I am attempting to solve the first problem of scattering seed by going back to a 4-per-square-foot planting system. I used napkins and a glue stick to allow me to create little patches of seeds. Then, I cut up the napkin so I could plant each bunch of seeds separately. I picked a napkin as the medium to glue the seeds on because I think the paper will dissolve pretty rapidly once wet, allowing the seed to send its roots down. I planted these today, 4-per-square-foot, more or less evenly throughout the same bed in which I planted the garlic. (The garlic occupy 2 of the 12 feet, the onions the remaining space.) I hope to have about 150 or so onions from this. That will be plenty to harvest next June.

The second issue was using annual seeds instead of biannual seeds. I purposely kept about 10 onions (long red Florence) alive through the winter and let them go to seed the second year. I used those seeds, as I trust that only a few will got to seed early. That variety was generally a better variety for not going to seed early when I have raised them in the past.

Now seeds and cloves just have to sprout.

Sunflowers -- Two Kinds

Jenna wanted to plant sunflowers this year. Entirely her choice. So, I figured out that we could plant 23 per 12' x 4' raised bed planter if we put 8 down either side and 7 down the middle, spaced so that they were 18" apart. What we had on hand were a variety known as lemon sunflowers. I bought two packets of seeds last year because I had the intention of participating in some sort of bee counting exercise and lemon sunflowers were what was called for. I never planted any, so we had just about enough to fill two planters (56 sunflower plants). Of course, once planted, not all came up. (I even pulled one out by accident.)

The obvious solution was to go buy more seeds. The variety that was in the store was called mammoth. So, in the spots were the lemon sunflowers didn't sprout, I replanted mammoth. Eventually, all the spots I had reserved for seeds had sunflowers growing in them. The lemon variety were supposed to get between 6 and 8 feet tall. The mammoth variety was supposed to get 12 feet tall.

Before Jenna left for the first of her many summer camps, I took a photo of her standing in front of the plants. She is 5'2" or so. The ones that bloomed at this point in time were mostly the lemon variety sunflowers. When I first saw them, I was confused because I expected there to be just one bloom and that at the top. Lemon sunflowers produce multiple flowers. By now, because I figured out how to grown them but not harvest them, the gold finches have pretty much stripped them of seeds.

On the other hand, the mammoth sunflowers are behaving more like I expected. The flowers are bigger and there is just one per plant. They are coming in much later. And true to what was promised on the package, the stalks are much taller. I think 12' may be just about what the tallest among them are. Maybe by the time they are all pollinated, I will have figured out how to harvest the seeds before the birds get all of them. Right now, as you can see in the photo, the bees are just getting around to pollinating them. (Not my bees; the hive died.) I think the bee in the photo is actually a bumble bee.

So, Jenna's idea has turned into an interesting plant. I think she just wanted to see the flowers and doesn't care about the seeds. The birds clearly care about the seeds. I can imagine growing some of both varieties each year. Easy to grow. Big! And useful for someone.

I learned that there are two major classes of sunflower seeds. What they call confectioner (meaning, I suppose that the seeds are good for eating as a snack) and oil producing. I believe what I have planted are all confection types. So, if I actually plan this for next year, I would like to experiment with some oil producing varieties.

Tomato Seeds

I'm not much in the mood for gardening. I just have too many things going this year. But, it is time to plant seeds and I need to document what I am doing. So here is the quick update.

I planted four variety of heirloom tomato seeds last night. I planted in alphabetical order, from nearest to farthest on the table. They include 16 seeds each of Hungarian Heart, Italian Heirloom, John Baer, and Rutgers.

Last year, the place I had them became a bit of a mess. I'm trying to keep the mess contained this year. It is by an east-facing window, so there will be morning light. I am watering from the bottom, pouring water into the plastic basin that the planting containers sit in.

Garlic Sprouts

I planted 48 garlic cloves and took a look yesterday to see how they were doing. I counted 24 sprouts. So half of them have sprouted. As I recall from last year, it seemed to take a lot longer for the cloves I got from seed savers to sprout than it did this year. I noticed that seed savers did not offer my variety, Chet's red, this year. I may plant some more when I get back from my trip so I can share the cloves with Seed Savers and others.

I still have a number of bulbs in the cold room at the office. i should think of a way to process them. I'm going to have to look to see what the options are.

Onion Sprouts

Not much has been happening in the garden. The majority of the broccoli and cauliflower I planted died. I did plant seeds of the same that have started coming up. So I have 5 broccoli plants and 3 cauliflower plants from the nursery and about the same coming up from seeds. A bit of a failure. Tim suggested I planted too close to the fertilizer. I will try to remember that next year.

It will be interesting to see how harvests of broccoli and cauliflower and lima and green beans turn out. It is getting cold. The low this morning was 41F. It's forecast to be in the 40s all week.

On Saturday, I planted 48 garlic cloves. Because only about a third of the onions sprouted from my earlier planting (none of the purple of Parma made it), I also replanted more yellow of Parma seeds in the open spots. There are a lot of weeds sprouting. I will need to get them out, but I would like to give the onion seeds a chance to get established a bit first.

Broccoli Cauliflower

(br>It turned out to be a busy Saturday. After planting onion seeds, I went to Webster Brothers in Walkertown. It's the one place that I can guarantee finding cauliflower to plant. I haven't mastered the art of growing broccoli or cauliflower from seed. Maybe I will try it next spring.

On the way there, my son Jason asked me to help him install a ceiling light and fan. That took the bulk of the afternoon. The fixture was actually rescued from Jenna's room when I installed a new light there and Jason's baby room had a ceiling outlet for a light and fan, but nothing installed. It made for an interesting afternoon because, despite our thinking it through, we didn't understand until faced with the facts that there are two sizes of pipes that can be used to hang such fixtures from the ceiling. We learned this because we purchased the wrong one and had to go shopping again to find the right one. Then, we learned about how easy it is to trip a multibreaker and how challenging it is to reset one. But the fan and light were ultimately installed and worked.

It was evening before I got to plant the broccoli and cauliflower. I used my McDonald's straw trick to guard against cutworms. I installed the straws in the house before putting them in the beds. I put the plants in the beds with the poor soil. Things grew there; it just doesn't seem like the soil has much to it. I fertilized heavily and added a scoop of soil from one of the better beds right at the spot where the plants were placed. I think I will need to water regularly until the plants are established.

Garden Friends and Onions

My activity this past week has involved getting the garden ready for fall planting and planting some onion seeds. I had Sam and Taylor come over and finish cleaning out the beds. It was well worth the cost for their three hours of work.

I planted some onion seeds. This year, I am planting 4 to a square foot. That will give them a little more room. I also planted in a bed that is easier to water. I want to give them a little more water next spring than the yellow of Parma got last year. Hopefully, it will keep them from going to bloom prematurely. I planted 48 seeds from a purplish yellow of Parma onion that I had saved. It will be interesting to see if they turn out to be purplish, too. Then I planted seeds in 136 spots for true yellow of Parma. I had plenty of seeds left over from last year, so I used those rather than the seeds I had gathered from this year. I double planted so that there were at least two seeds in every hole. A couple of years ago, I didn't plant deeply enough and the seeds either didn't sprout or died shortly after. This year, the holes were maybe a half an inch deep, but not fully filled in when I was done. I hope they sprout and that they weren't planted too deep.

The rest of this entry is just pictures of garden friends that I've seen around.

Beans and Water

The middle of August is not usually the time to start planting. Most people are probably slowing down and just putting their garden to rest. I decided to keep things going. This is especially true because I hired to young men from church to help clean things up and (eventually) process the new horse manure I got.

I had them clean out one of the beds in which I had raised onions and garlic. It had gone to weed mostly. They brought in 8 loads of manure using the small barrow. It filled the bed to the brim. All that was left of me was to use the garden fork to turn it, fertilize, plant and water. (More about water in a moment.) I planted blue lake beans, 4 per square foot yesterday morning.

I had actually found enough ambition prior to their help to clean out the other onion bed by myself and plant Lima beans. The Limas have now sprouted. About 90% came up. Of these, I lost another 2-3% to animals taking off the first leaves. They seem to be growing well. I planted Limas at this time another year and had a fine harvest. Since I will probably be eating them by myself, there will surely be enough. I have more seed, but don't feel the need to fill out the bed.

Now about the water. When i was watering the blue lake bean bed, I sensed that, once again, I was not getting the water pressure I expected. I've had this happen before and found that it was the nozzle I was using that seemed to be the problem. I took off the nozzle and got a little better result, but it made me curious about whether or not there was something else going on.

I went to the place where the hoses all meet. In the past, I found a bit of blockage where the hoses meet the Y connector. I disconnected the hose that ran from the connector to the garden so I could see what was coming out and systematically eliminated all hoses but one and opened up that one's line and let the water run. When I did this, the water that came out of each was initially pretty dark with junk. Probably some sort of algae.


Here's what I think. The junk doesn't wash away because the water pressure is too stable and the flow is too slow when I turn on the hose. After all, there are 8 barrels feeding the one hose and the size of the connectors and size of the nozzle reduce what can go through the system at any given moment. So, algae start to grow in the hoses. The water pressure is probably even lessened a bit because there is junk growing in the hoses.

When this will become a potential real problem will be when (if ever) I finally get a slow drip system installed in the garden. Then the water will flow evenly, but slowly and junk will grow.

In the short run, one solution might be to cut off all but one or two barrels and just take water from those barrels. The water would flow faster through those hoses when they were in use. And, when the entire system was opened back up, the pressure of the backwash as the barrels filled back up again may help further clean out the hoses. Overall pressure during the partial shut down might be a little less, but I can live with that. I may only need to do this periodically as preventive maintenance. The other solution is to pour chlorine bleach into the system to kill the algae. Not a good idea. If the water in the hoses is as stagnant as I think the chlorine might not get where it was needed and there are doubtless environmental impacts I would rather not have.

Catching Up

Come June, there are always a lot of things that start happening with the garden. I'm just going to race through some documentation so that I might be able to keep track of when I started things and how things are proceeding at this point in time.

Jason and I planted 24 cucumber plants from seedlings that I had sprouted indoors. Half (12) were Parade, which I believe are for pickling. The other half were Japanese Climbing cucumbers, which I believe will be for salads. Each of the 24 seem to have taken hold. I have one that is ready to climb the trellis I installed. I added a little fertilizer and compost. They seem to be doing well, but things are going slow.

The tomatoes are growing but I have yet to see any set fruit. The exception is the box where I planted Hungarian Hearts, followed by Rutgers. All but one of the Rutgers have died. I suspect I have what Clarence Brown refers to as tomato wilt. But, i planted more Hungarian Heart seeds and have at least half a dozen of those that have sprouted. Sort of a lame bed in many ways. I had such high hopes. Perhaps the seedling Hungarian Hearts will yet grow and produce.

The yellow squash (below) and zucchini are disappointing so far. But, I understand why. The beds they are planted in have very poor soil that is really just mulch. The only reason the Italkian Heirloom tomatoes are doing well (I am convinced) is because of the soil I added when I transplanted them. Nonetheless, they are now starting to grow. I added a little fertlizer to get them going a bit better. It's keeping them watered that is the real challenge. The mulch doesn't hold water well.


I planted three varieties of green bean Saturday and this morning in the same poor soil. I added as much compost as I could and then stole some soil from one of the older beds to try to boost water retention. I also fertilized heavily. I guess time will tell. I believe I will have to water morning and evening until they sprout. It's rained the past several days, which has helped. (The barrels are full again.)

My yellow of Parma onions have gone to bloom. They were so healthy early on. The ones that haven't bloomed have nice large bulbs. I'm at a loss to understand exactly why this happened. I have two ideas: water and spacing. I am hoping to eventually add a drip system and can plant next year's crop 4 per square foot instead of 9. The long red Florence have not suffered this fate.


Finally, I have some peppers that have sprouted and should be ready to plant soon. They are outside now.

pH and Tomatoes

Today was the day to plant the John Baer and the Italian Heirloom tomatoes. The weather has become warmer and the lows are predicted to be above 50F for the next several days -- perhaps from now on. I have two beds that I have decided to use, one for each variety. I spent the day preparing the beds; turning the soil, adding lime and ferlizer and planting.

The bed that the John Baer tomatoes are in is a bed that has older (relatively) soil. It is the soil I got about 4 years ago from Oak Ridge Schrubbery and has become quite nice in that time. It is like having pristine dirt. The only challenge I found this morning was that the soil had a very acidic pH. (The needle pointing left on my meter is towards acid.) I probably added 10-15 pounds of lime pellets to it to try to bring it around before I planted. I used the same spacing as I used with the Hungarian Hearts that I planted earlier.

The Italian Heirloom bed is the new soil I got from Oak Ridge Schrubbery last year. Nothing has been grown in it yet. I don't know if I really trust it. In another bed, I had planted some spinach, but it came up very spotty. I planted rhubarb in the third bed with this soil and so far haven't seen a thing. Interestingly, the pH in this bed was about perfect. I still added some lime, but not as much.

When I planted in the John Baer bed, I took out some of the soil and kept it aside and then, when I planted in the Italian Heirloom bed, I mixed 4-5 handfuls of the soil from that bed with 4-5 handfuls of the soil I had saved from the other bed. The problem as I see it is that the soil in the new beds is really just rough compost. I see toadstools and other fungi in those beds. Give it a couple of years and it may get to be soil, but for now it is not what I really want. I asked the woman who sold it to me if there was actually any dirt in it. She lied when she said yes.

I put my drinking straw collars around each plant. Some of the plants were still very small. Some were very spindly. I expect to have to monitor and water them frequently until they get established. The Hungarian Heart that survived seems to be doing well now and looks like it has taken root and is growing. So a couple of week of decent weather and regular water and I hope each of these will do well, too.

Seeds vs. Sets

I planted onion seeds for two varieties last autumn -- long red Florence and yellow of Parma. Rather than scattering seeds, I used my spacing template to plant 9 per square foot because the year before I tried to plant them close and found that it was too difficult to replant them later in the spring as sets. The Florence didn't come up as well this year as the Parma did. I attribute this primarily to voles or some other pest in the box where the Florence were planted.

But the bigger immediate question is how the seeds have fared so far when compared to sets. Because the Florence were spotty, I bought sets and planted them in the same raised bed. It allows me to make a direct comparison. The photo below compares the best Florence with 2 onions typical of those planted as sets. Not all the Florence are this big, but most are clearly larger than the onions planted from sets.


The Parma that were planted from seeds grew much more regularly and, overall, seem to be doing great. They are all tall and have developed nice thick stalks. It might be hard to make a direct comparison between the photos, but the Parma are uniformly as large as the Florence I captured above.


The conclusion is that I like seeds, at least so far. I have to figure out the pest problem and will move the bed where I plant next year if I can't kill the pests off.

New Hearts

Given my poor judgment about transplanting the Hungarian Heart tomato seedlings, I thought I would try again. It would be a shame for me to lose out on learning about this new (to me) variety altogether. So I replanted. I ran out of the peat pots I used the first time. I bought new pots at Tractor supply. The new ones were a bit bigger than the ones I originally used, 3 inch Jiffy Pots that came 22 to a pack.

I planted 16 seeds. I put them in a bit deeper this time around because I noticed that especially for the Hungarian Hearts, the seed cover tended to stay on the first leaves. I figured thet planting deeper would allow the soil to help rip the seed cover off. All came up. Only 3 had seed covers still attached and they came off easily.


I've also tried something else with this batch. I purposely didn't fill the pots to the brim with planting mix when I started the seeds. As the seedlings grow, I will back fill the pots with soil until it reaches the top, allowing the seedlings to start establishing side roots earlier and giving the stalk a bit more support throughout the early phases. (I've noticed for instance that watering even at this stage knocks over some of the stems.) I've only just started this process. I packed a little planting mix around 5 of the plants this morning, adding only about 3/8 inch of soil to the pots.


Then I went out to the garden to clean out weeds and, to my surprise, I still had one Hungarian Heart alive in the bed. I am hoping this one will continue to do well. I will mark it as having hardy character and maybe take some seeds from it if it also does well as a producer.

Dead Hearts

I believe in reporting failure. The Hungarian Hearts I planted are dead. Clearly too soon. It didn't get down to freezing, but they clearly didn't like the 40s and 50s F.

I planted 16 new seeds. I probably have a month before things should really be planted. I may just plant them a little late.

Hungarian Hearts

The Hungarian Hearts were the tomato variety that suvived poor water the best. The problem I have seen with them over the past several weeks is an increasing loss of vatality in the leaf color. They are turning quite yellow. In the past, I've found the best remedy is to just get them into the ground and let them grow under normal garden conditions. It is a bit early in the season; the official last frost date isn't for a week or so. I checked the weather channel and they projected no frost for the next 10 days. Besides, I have a cover that I can stick over the top if things look really bad.

I tagged the ones I thought were most ready to go in the ground and put my McDonalds' straws on them for cut worm collars.


The last several years, I have put 18 plants in a bed. This year I am putting 16 plants in a bed. For one thing, I have expanded to three beds dedicated to tomatoes this year, so I will have space for 48 tomato plants instead of 36. This way, I can also use the cold frame conduit to help support the cages and each bed has 5 tubes -- 1 at each end to support 2 plants each and 3 in the middle that will support 4 plants each.

I turned the cages upside down to get my spacing.


I expect rain this afternoon, so I didn't water. We had a good storm last night and the soil was really good and moist.

The one good thing about the spindly seedlings was that I could bury them pretty deep. I understand that the little hairs will turn into roots, so I hope that part works out. I did have an accident with one plant. It's leaves broke off before I could get it into the ground. But, I started with 24 plants and had an extra. (I plan to give all the rest away to friends.)


One thing I do want to comment on, just for the record, is that a whole lot of weeds had grown up in the bed over the winter. This is a problem with several of the beds. The onions have already been weeded. There are 3 beds that I need to get to.

Aargh Update

To be brief, after watering and waiting, all of the John Baer seedlings that were drooping have more or less recovered and are alive. I have given many of them shikabob skewers to rest against, but their leaves have all revived. All but 6 of the Italian Heirloom also revived. The 6 that didn't are probably done for and I will need to replant.

Aargh

It always happens. You think you are doing your best and then you goof up. My tomatoes were coming along just fine. I thought that by turning on the fan, the stalks would thicken up a little. I went in on Wednesday and examined. Things were a little dry so I watered, giving about 2 quarts among the three planters. (I actually bought a 1/4" line so that I could syphon water from the pitcher and control its flow more easily. The syphon worked great. It just needed to work more.) The plants in the top photo are the Italian Heirloom.

But then I went in this morning and felt that sinking feeling in my chest. Two of the three plantings had gone totally dry and the tomatoes had started to (or completely in some cases) keeled over. The soil was totally dry. Of course, the fan is the culprit, but it is my lack of diligence that is the real problem. Seedlings cannot be ignored and I had ignored them. The plants in the center photo are the John Baer. They are the ones that have had the greatest problem in color -- the leaves have a yellowish tint.

Amazingly, the Hungarian Heart (in the bottom photo) seemed to do the best. The soil was just as dry but they had not wilted. I guess their point of catastrophe is a little different than the other varieties.

I immediately gave each bed water, about 2 quarts each. I turned off the fan. I will give them a while to see if some respond. I will replant where I see that a seedling has died. What else can I do at this point?

The ten days we were gone on vacation with the fan off, nothing bad happened. Just a few days with different conditions changed everything.

Rhubarb

I ordered rhubarb from Holland Bulb Farms back in February. The package finally arrived yesterday. I knew it was going to freeze last night, so I didn't plant as soon as I could. Plus, I have come down with a decent cold that has wiped out my energy. Today was a very nice day with temperatures in the low 60s F. So, I opened the package up today and planted. Just planting these few made me so tired I took an hour nap.

I ordered 6 plants -- 2 sets of 3. Each had 4 roots in them, although one of the roots was very small and the other root was actually still somewhat attached (just by a thread) to another root. So I planted 8 roots. These roots are different from what I have seen in the past. The crown was less well defined. In one case at least I just made a best guess about which end should be up.

Rhubarb pies have been a family tradition as long as I can remember. My mother used to always have a rhubarb pie ready for me when I came home to visit. I request rhubarb pie for my birthday instead of cake. The rhubarb we had earlier died out a couple of years ago and we have been surviving on the stems I cut and froze but finally used the last of it on my last birthday. The new rhubarb won't be ready to harvest for a year, and then only sparingly. So I will have to supplement with rhubarb from the store. (I actually found some in a store last year.) But, it's good to know we are getting back in business.

Spindly Seedling Growth

I've been away from the house on vacation for about 10 days. I watered the tomato seedlings well before I left and kept the grow light on. Upon my return, they had grown. But I think they are a little spindly.


I also have some yellowish leaves.


I think most of this will be taken care of when they are transplanted. I got some general advice from an online source. I may turn on the fan in the room where they are located. Other than that, I don't think I will worry.

Onion and Garlic Report

I assessed the status of my garlic and onions. Despite my early attempt to keep them covered, i left them exposed most of the harsh winter in their beds. The garlic I bought from Seed Savers Exchange, Chet's Italian Red, did very well. The only weak garlic plants were the two I planted from garlic I found in the refrigerator.


The Long Red Florence onions did not do as well. I only had a few survive.


The Yellow of Parma onions on the other hand did really well and survived nicely. I don't think I lost any that had sprouted.


I decided to supplement the Long Red Florence bed with some new onions. A friend had encouraged me to plant onion seedlings that were supposed to be available at Webster Brothers. I drove there and only found sets. I wanted red onions if I could get them, but they only had white and yellow. So I got just shy of 100 sets and planted them this afternoon. I may have to make another trip, probably to Kernersville Seed and Feed to get some more because the ones I got were only about half what I needed. Feed and Seed usually has red onions, so that should work.