Diary 4/11/12

It was either pouring or sunny all day with some mountain top rumbling thunder this afternoon.  Made two batches of soil for a transplanting session coming up in a few days and a little transplanting of tomato babies in the meantime.  If you grow your own onion starts, or even if you buy some from the garden shop, it is a great thing to trim them back to encourage root growth.  This also makes them more manageable when transplanting; the spindly tops won't be so apt to fall over.  The increased roots of course make better transplants and tougher plants to go out and face life without their buddies right next to them.

1/12/12

Bleak might be the other word I could use.  The daily freezing has everything on hold.  With no rain or snow, it is as if everything is hibernating and dormant, no life at all.  I know with a warm up and some moisture, things, even the littlest things, will show growth and the move toward Spring will begin.  For now, it is all cold and frozen out there in the shade and only slightly thawed daily where the sun hits the soil, only to freeze again by nightfall. The weather is predicted to change during the weekend and even beyond, switching us out of this high pressure event that had been going on for weeks.  If so, there may be a bit of snow here and hopefully some for the ski resorts that have not opened this year due to lack of snow!  The late rains of last Spring kept the onions from finishing in time for winter. The picture shows all that were now harvested because they did not bulb.  Will it repeat this year with late rains to make up for low water year?  I think I will plant them in a sunnier place this year anyway.

Diary 3/10

overwintered kale is so sweet

It is gnarly outside.  Gushing rain and wind.  The .4 inches pour out this morning is in there again, working on a  half an inch. I should go check on "things", and I was so going to transplant today, but as of yet still cleaning for weekend visitors and making another curtain.  Yesterday's warmth should have sprouted some more things.  I saw tiny lettuces lifting roofs of dirt where they were poking up. The walla wallas are sprouting also.  First, they are folded in half as they emerge and then SHIZAM!they unfold and turn green. They are so strong in their tiny way.

Starting Onions

Mixing seed and dry scattering medium

Scattering by hand

Prepared bed

Mulch and water

Today I finally got the Walla Walla seed in the ground.  The onions will ripen with the descending light of shorter days in late summer, and may keep better for it. First I work up the bed.  I picked a loose one I hadn't grow onions in last year.  Took out a few rocks and crumbled a few clods.  Then I mix the seed with a medium (some dusty stuff I found under the soil mixer) that does not look like the surrounding soil you are planting in inside a bowl, gallon or quart milk jug, whatever you can get your hand or cup in.  Be frugal with the amount of seeds per medium, you would like the onions plantlets to be about a green onion apart from one another ideally. Mix well, and begin scattering by shaking handfuls or cupfuls onto your prepared bed.  Then, I cover with a thin layer of mulch, in this case I used coconut fiber, then water.  You can see the black seeds as you are scattering and tell how far apart they are landing.  It becomes regulated by how proficient a scatterer you are.  Tricky, but after twenty some years of doing it this way, I am getting the hang of it!